Religion  and  Lust 

OB 

THE  PSYCHICAL    CORRELATION 

OF    RELIGIOUS    EMOTION 

AND  SEXUAL  DESIRE 


BY 

JAMES  WEIR,  JR.,  M.  D. 

AUTHOR  OF  THE  DAWN  OF  REASON,   ANIMAL    INTEL- 
LIGENCE, ETC. 


THIRD  EDITION 

REVISED  AND  ENLARGED  WITH  ADDITIONAL  NOTES. 


CHICAGO 

CHICAGO  MEDICAL  BOOK  CO. 
1905 


1105 


PREFACE  TO  FIRST  EDITION. 

T/t^  author  of  this  monograph  has  been  incited  to 
its  publication  by  the  commendations  of  three  of  the 
most  eminent  critics  and  editors  of  magazines  in  the 
United  States,  to  whom  it  was  submitted  in  manu- 
script. In  this  essay,  he  discusses  his  subject  from  a 
physio-psychical  standpoint,  and  believes  that  he  has 
kept  intact  the  canons  of  scientific  investigation,  ob- 
servation, and  discussion. 

"Waveland"  June  8,  1897. 

PREFACE  TO  SECON       'DITION. 

In  preparing  The  Psychical  o  rrelation  of  Reli- 
gious Emotion  and  Sexual  Desire  for  its  second  edition, 
the  author  has  incorporated  in  it  a  considerable  amount 
of  additional  evidence  in  support  of  his  theory.  He 
has  carefully  verified  all  references;  he  has  endeavored 
to  eliminate  all  unnecessary  material;  and,  finally,  he 
has  changed  the  style  of  the  work  by  dividing  it  into 
three  parts,  thus  greatly  simplifying  the  text.  He 
feels  under  many  obligations  to  his  critics,  both  to 
those  who  thought  his  little  book  worthy  of  commen- 
dation, and  to  those  who  deemed  his  premises  and  con- 
clusions erroneous.  He  feels  grateful  to  the  former, 
because  they  have  caused  him  to  believe  that  he  has 
added  somewhat  to  the  literature  of  science;  he  thanks 
the  latter,  because  in  pointing  out  that  which  they  con- 
sidered untrue,  they  have  forced  him  to  a  new  and  more 
searching  study  of  the  questions  involved,  thereby 


strengthening  his  belief  in  the  truthfulness  of  his  con- 
clusions. 

To  the  second  edition  of  The  Psychical  Correla- 
tion of  Religious  Emotion  and  Sexual  Desire,  the  au- 
thor has  seen  fit  to  add  certain  other  essays.    In  prepar- 
ing these  essays  for  publication,  he  has  borrowed  freely 
from  his  published  papers,  therefore,  he  desires  to  than/ 
the  publishers  of  the  New  York  Medical  Record,  Ce* 
tury    Magazine,    Denver   Medical    Times,    Charlo 
Monthly  and  American  Naturalist  for  granting  hi. 
permission  to  use  such  of  his  published  material   (be- 
longing to  them)  as  he  saw  fit. 

The  author  asks  the  indulgence  of  the  reader  for 
certain  repetitions  in  the  text.  These  have  not  been 
occasioned  by  any  lack  of  data,  but  occur  simply  because 
he  believes  that  an  argument  is  rendered  stronger  and 
more  convincing  by  the  frequent  use  of  the  same  data 
whenever  and  wherever  it  is  possible  to  use  them. 
When  this  plan  is  followed,  the  reader,  so  the  author 
believes,  becomes  familiar  with  the  author's  line  of 
thought,  and  is,  consequently,  better  able  to  compre- 
hend and  appreciate  his  meaning. 

Finally,  the  author  has  been  led  to  the  publication 
of  these  essays  by  a  firm  belief  in  the  truthfulness  of 
the  propositions  advanced  therein.  He  may  not  live  to 
see  these  propositions  accepted,  yet  he  believes  that,  in 
the  future,  perhaps,  in  worthier  and  more  able  hands, 
they  will  be  so  weightily  and  forcibly  elaborated  and 
advanced  that  their  verity  will  be  universally  acknowl- 
edged. 

"Waveland"  September  17,  1897. 


*        PREFACE  TO  THIRD  EDITION. 

The  author,  after  mature  consideration,  has 
ught  it  advisable  to  confine  the  subject  matter  of 
tne  Third  Edition  of  Religion  and  Lust  almost  wholly 
to  the  psychical  correlation  of  religious  emotion  and 
sexual  desire.  He  has  eliminated  certain  of  the  psychical 
Problems  embraced  in  the  First  and  Second  Editions 
and  has  added  instead  a  bibliography.  The  student,  he 
thinks,  will  find  these  changes  of  value,  especially  in 
the  matter  of  reference.  The  author  has  also  added 
certain  data  to  the  thesis  of  the  work,  as  well  as  foot- 
notes; which,  he  thinks,  will  strengthen  the  deductions 
and  conclusions  therein  enunciated.  He  has  carefully 
and  conscientiously  edited  and  verified  all  notes  and 
quotations  to  be  found  in  the  book  and  rests  satisfied  in 
the  conviction  that,  whatever  may  be  lacking  in  his  little 
volume,  it  will  not  be  "the  truth,  the  whole  truth,  and 
nothing  but  the  truth." 

"Waveland,"  Owensboro,  Ky.,  Feb.  25,  1905. 


CONTENTS. 

Religion  and  Lust  Page 

Chap.  I.    The  Origin  of  Religious  Feeling. ...     9 

Chap.  II.    Phallic  Worship/ 41 

Chap.  III.     The  Psychical  Correlation  of  Re- 
ligious Emotion  and  Sexual  Desire 99 

^vyViraginity  and  Effeminatior^^A^>.^^ 121 

'Borderlands  and  Crankdom 135 

Genius  and  Degeneration^^V. .» 155 

The  Effect  of  Female  Suff^e4  on  Posterity 175 

Is  It  the  Beginning  of  the  End  ? 199 

Bibliography   23 1 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  ORIGIN  OF  RELIGIOUS  FEELING. 

I  believe  that  man  originated  his  first 
ideas  of  the  supernatural  from  the  external 
phenomena  of  nature  which  were  percepti- 
ble to  one  or  more  of  his  five  senses;  his  first 
theogony  was  a  natural  one  and  one  taken 
directly  from  nature.  In  ideation  the  pri- 
mal bases  of  thought  must  have  been 
founded,  ab  initio,  upon  sensual  percep- 
tions; hence,  must  have  been  materialistic 
and  natural.  Spencer,  on  the  contrary, 
maintains  that  in  man,  "the  first  traceable 
conception  of  a  supernatural  being  is  the 
conception  of  a  ghost."1 

Primitive  man's  struggle  for  existence 
was  so  very  severe  that  his  limited  sagacity 
was  fully  occupied  in  obtaining  food  and 
shelter;  many  thousands  of  years  must  have 
passed  away  before  he  evolved  any  idea  of 

(l)  Spencer:  Principles  of  Sociology,  vol.  I,  p. 
281. 


10  RELIGION   AND   LUST. 

weapons  other  than  stones  and  clubs.  When 
he  arrived  at  a  psychical  acuteness  that  orig- 
inated traps,  spears,  bows  and  arrows,  his 
struggle  for  existence  became  easier  and  he 
had  leisure  to  notice  the  various  natural 
phenomena  by  which  he  was  surrounded. 
Man  evolved  a  belief  in  a  god  long  before 
he  arrived  at  a  conception  of  a  ghost, 
double,  or  soul.  He  soon  discovered  that 
his  welfare  was  mainly  dependent  on  na- 
ture, consequently  he  began  to  propitiate 
nature,  and  finally  ended  by  creating  a  sys- 
tem of  theogony  founded  on  nature  alone.* 
"It  is  an  evident  historical  fact  that  man 
first  personified  natural  phenomena,  and 
then  made  use  of  these  personifications  to 
personify  his  own  inward  acts,  his  psychical 
ideas  and  conceptions.  This  was  the  neces- 
sary process,  and  external  idols  were 
formed  before  those  which  were  internal 

(*)  "Theology  and  religion  are  of  service  in  morals 
and  conduct  in  direct  proportion  as  they  have  become 
adapted  to  our  knowledge  of  natural  phenomena — 
Lydston :  The  Diseases  of  Society,  p.  68. 


RELIGION   AND  LUST.  11 

and  peculiar  to  himself."2  Sun,  moon,  and 
star;  mountain,  hill,  and  dale;  torrent, 
waterfall,  and  rill,  all  became  to  him  dis- 
tinct personalities,  powerful  beings,  that 
might  do  him  great  harm  or  much  good. 
He  therefore  endeavored  to  propitiate 
them,  just  as  a  dog  endeavors  to  get  the 
good  will  of  man  by  abjectly  crawling  to- 
ward him  on  his  belly  and  licking  his  feet. 
There  was  no  element  of  true  worship  in  the 
propitiatory  offerings  of  primitive  man;  in 
the  beginning  he  was  essentially  a  material- 
ist— he  became  a  spiritualist  later  on. 
Man's  first  religion  must  have  been,  neces- 
sarily, a  material  one;  he  worshiped  (pro- 
pitiated) only  that  which  he  could  see,  or 
feel,  or  hear,  or  touch;  his  undeveloped 
psychical  being  could  grasp  nothing  high- 
er; his  limited  understanding  could  not 
frame  an  idea  involving  a  spiritual  element 
such  as  animism  undoubtedly  presents. 

(2)   Tito  Vignoli:  Myth  and  Science,  p.  85.' 


12  RELIGION  AND  LUST. 

Apropos  of  the  dream  birth  of  the  soul,  all 
terrestrial  mammals  dream,  and  in  some  of 
them,  notably  the  dog  and  monkey,  an  ob- 
server can  almost  predicate  the  subject  of 
their  dreams  by  watching  their  actions 
while  they  are  under  dream  influence;  yet 
no  animal  save  man,  as  far  as  we  know,  has 
ever  evolved  any  idea  of  ghost  or  soul.*  It 
may  be  said,  on  the  other  hand,  that  since 
animals  show,  unmistakably,  that  they  are, 
in  a  measure,  fully  conscious  of  certain  phe- 
nomena in  the  economy  of  nature,  and  while 
I  am  not  prepared  to  state  that  any  element 
of  worship  enters  into  their  regard,  I  yet 
believe  that  an  infinitesimal  increase  in  the 
development  of  their  psychical  beings 

(*)  Clarke  in  his  interesting  book  gives  us  some 
very  readable  stories  anent  the  ability  of  animals  seeing 
imaginary  objects.  I  myself  have  seen  a  parrot  with  a 
marked  case  of  delirium  tremens,  due  to  excessive  use 
of  alcoholic  stimulants  (Vid.  Author:  The  Dawn  of 
Reason).  Romanes  also  gives  valuable  data  in  his 
Mental  Evolution  (in  Animal,  and  in  Man)  concern- 
ing this  subject.  The  fox  terrier  (Vid.  Author: 
Dawn  of  Reason)  which  carried  his  dreams  into  his 
awakened  state  is  apropos. 


RELIGION  AND  LUST.  13 

would,  undoubtedly,  lead  some  of  them  to  a 
natural  religion  such  as  our  pithecoid  an- 
cestors practiced. 

The  Egyptians  noticed,  over  four  thou- 
sand years  ago,  that  cynocephali,  the  dog- 
headed  apes  of  the  Nile  Valley,  were  in  the 
habit  of  welcoming  the  rising  sun  with 
dancing  and  with  howls  of  joy!  "The  habit 
of  certain  monkeys  (cynocephali)  assem- 
bling, as  it  were,  in  full  court,  and  chatter- 
ing noisily  at  sunrise  and  sunset,  would  al- 
most justify  the,  as  yet,  uncivilized 
Egyptians  in  intrusting  them  with  the 
charge  of  hailing  the  god  morning  and 
evening  as  he  appeared  in  the  east  or  passed 
away  in  the  west"3  An  English  fox-terrier 
of  my  acquaintance  is  very  much  afraid  of 
thunder  or  any  noise  simulating  thunder.  A 
load  of  coal  rushing  through  a  chute  into 
the  coal  cellar  will  send  him,  trembling  and 


(3)  Maspero  (Sayce) :  The  Dawn  of  Civiliza- 
tion, p.  103,  and  Maspero:  Etudes  de  Mythologie  et 
d'Archiologie  Egyptiennes,  vol.  ii,  pp.  34,  35. 


14  RELIGION  AND   LUST. 

alarmed,  to  his  hiding-place  beneath  a  bed. 
This  dog  has  never  been  shot  over,  nor  has 
he,  as  far  as  I  know,  ever  heard  the  sound  of 
a  gun.  I  am  confident  that  he  considers  the 
thunder  as  being  supernatural,  and  that  he 
would  propitiate  it,  if  he  only  knew  how. 

It  is  not  probable  that,  at  the  present 
time,  there  exists  a  race  of  people  which  has 
not  formulated  an  idea  of  ghost  or  soul; 
yet  in  ancient  times,  and  up  to  a  century  or 
so  ago,  there  existed  many  peoples  who  had 
not  conceived  any  idea  of  ghosts  or  doubles. 

According  to  Maspero,  Sayce,  Cham- 
pollion,  and  other  Egyptologists,  the  an- 
cient Egyptians  probably  had  a  natural  the- 
ogony  long  before  they  arrived  at  any  idea 
of  a  double.  In  the  beginning  they  treated 
the  double  or  ghost  with  scant  ceremony; 
it  was  only  after  many  years  that  an  element 
of  worship  entered  into  their  treatment  of 
the  ghosts  of  their  dead  ancestors.  They 
believed,  at  first,  that  the  double  dwelt  for- 
ever in  the  tomb  along  with  the  dead  body; 


RELIGION  AND  LUST.  15 

afterward,  they  evolved  the  idea  that  the 
double  of  the  dead  man  journeyed  to  the 
"Islands  of  the  Blessed,"  where  it  was 
judged  by  Osiris  according  to  its  merits.4 
We  have  no  reason  for  believing  that  .the 
ancient  Hebrews  at  the  time  of  the  Exodus 
had  any  knowledge  of,  or  belief  in,  the  ex- 
istence of  the  soul  or  double,  yet,  that  they 
did  believe  in  the  supernatural  can  not  be 
questioned.*  When  Cook  touched  at  Tierra 
del  Fuego,  he  found  a  people  in  whom  there 
existed  mental  habitudes  but  little  above 
those  to  be  found  in  the  anthropoid  apes. 
They  had  no  knowledge  whatever  of  the 
soul  or  double  and  but  a  dim  concept  of  the 
powers  of  nature ;  they  had  not  yet  advanced 

(4)  Maspero  (Sayce) :  The  Dawn  of  Civilization, 
p.  183  et  seq. 

(*)  That  the  patriarchs  had  their  household  gods, 
we  have  every  reason  for  believing;  these  household 
gods  were,  however,  tutelary  divinities,  such  as  were 
kept  in  the  house  of  every  Chaldean,  and  were  not  the 
images  of  ancestors.  Rachel,  the  wife  of  Jacob,  stole 
the  household  gods  of  Laban,  her  father,  who  is  called 
a  Syrian.  Abraham  himself  was  a  Chaldean.  Gen. 
ii  131 ;  also  Gen.  31 : 19-20. 


16  RELIGION   AND  LUST. 

far  enough  in  psychical  development  tc 
evolve  any  consistent  form  of  natural  the- 
ogony.    They  had  only  a  shadowy  concept 
of  evil  beings,  powers  of  the  air  that  inhab- 
ited the  dense  brakes  of  the  forest,  whom  il 
would  be  dangerous  to  molest.  Father  Jun- 
ipero  Serra  declares  that  when  he  first  es- 
tablished the  Mission  Dolores,  the  Ahwash- 
tees,  Ohlones,   Romanos,  Altahmos,  Tuo- 
lomos,  and  other  Californian  tribes  had  no 
word  in  their  language  for  god,  ghost,  or 
devil.6    The  Inca  Yupangui  informed  Bal- 
boa that  there  were  many  tribes  in  the  inte- 
rior which  had  no  idea  of  ghost  or  soul.8 
Another  writer  says,  that  the  Chirihuanas 
did  not  worship  anything  either  in  heaven 
or  on  earth,  and  that  they  had  no  belief 
whatever  in  a  future  state.7    Modern  travel- 
ers have,  however,  found  distinct  evidences 

(5)  Bancroft:    The  Native  Races  of  the  Pacific 
States  of  North  America,  vol.  i,  p.  400. 

(6)  Balboa:   History  of  Peru. 

(7)  Garcilasso:    The  Royal  Commentaries  of  the 
Incas. 


RELIGION  AND  LUST.  17 

of  phallic  worship  in  certain  observances 
and  customs  of  this  tribe.8 

Certain  autochthons  of  India,  when  first 
discovered,  were  exceedingly  immature  in 
religious  beliefs;  they  had  neither  god  nor 
devil;  they  wandered  through  the  woods 
subsisting  on  berries  and  fruits,  and  such 
small  animals  as  their  undeveloped  and  fee- 
ble sagacity  allowed  them  to  capture  and 
slay.  They  did  not  even  provide  themselves 
with  shelter,  but,  in  pristine  nakedness, 
roamed  the  forests  of  the  Ghauts,  animals 
but  slightly  above  the  anthropoid  apes  in 
point  of  intelligence.  "In  Central  Califor- 
nia we  find,"  says  Bancroft,  "whole  tribes 
subsisting  on  roots,  herbs,  and  insects;  hav- 
ing no  boats,  no  clothing,  no  laws,  no 
God."9 

In  the  northwestern  corner  of  the  Amer- 
ican continent  there  dwells  a  primitive  race, 


(8)  Browlow:    Travels,  p.  136. 

(9)  Bancroft:    The  Native  Races  of  the  Pacific 
States  of  North  America,  vol.  i,  p.  400. 


18  RELIGION  AND  LUST. 

which,  for  the  sake  of  unification,  I  will 
style  the  Aleutians.  When  these  people 
were  first  discovered  they  were  in  that  state 
of  social  economics  which  they  had  reached 
after  thousands  of  years  of  psychical  and 
social  evolution;  a  primitive  people,  such 
as  our  own  ancestors  were  in  the  very  begin- 
ning of  civilization.  The  word  civilization 
is  used  advisedly;  civilization  is  compara- 
tive, and  its  degrees  begin  with  the  incep- 
tion of  man  himself. 

In  their  theogony,  the  Aleutians  had  ar- 
rived at  an  idea  of  the  double  or  soul,  thus 
showing  that  their  religion  had  progressed 
several  steps  toward  abstraction,  that  tri- 
umph of  civilized  religiosity;  yet  there  re- 
mained enough  veneration  of  natural  ob- 
jects to  show  that  the  origin  of  the  religious 
feeling  began,  with  them,  in  nature-propi- 
tiation. The  bladder  of  the  bear,  which  vis- 
cus,  in  the  estimation  of  the  Aleutians,  is 
the  seat  of  life,  is  at  once  suspended  above 
the  entrance  of  the  kachim  or  communal 


RELIGION   AND   LUST.  19 

dwelling  and  worshiped  by  the  hunter  who 
has  slain  the  beast  from  which  it  was  taken. 
Moreover,  when  the  bear  falls  beneath  the 
weapons  of  an  Aleutian,  the  man  begs  par- 
don of  the  beast  and  prays  the  latter  to  for- 
give him  and  to  do  him  no  harm.  "A  hun- 
ter who  has  struck  a  mortal  blow  generally 
remains  within  his  hut  for  one  or  several 
days,  according  to  the  importance  of  the 
slain  animal."10  The  first  herring  that  is 
caught  is  showered  with  compliments  and 
blessings;  pompous  titles  are  lavished  upon 
it,  and  it  is  handled  with  the  greatest  respect 
and  reverence;  it  is  the  herring-god!11 

Sidne,  chief  god  of  the  Aleutian  theog- 
ony,  on  final  analysis,  is  found  to  be  the 
Earth,  mother  of  all  things.  The  anga- 
kouts,  or  priests,  of  this  people  individual- 
ize and  deify,  however,  all  the  phenomena 
of  nature;  there  are  cloud-gods,  sea-gods, 

(10)  Reclus:   Primitive  Folk,  p.  18. 

( 1 1 )  Dall :   Alaska  and  its  Resources,  p.  96. 


20  RELIGION  AND  LUST. 

river-gods,  fire-gods,  rain-gods,  storm-gods, 
etc.,  etc.,  etc.  Everywhere,  throughout  all 
nature,  the  Inoit,  or  Aleutian  system  of  the- 
ology, penetrates,  stripped,  it  is  true,  of 
much  of  its  original  materialism,  yet  retain- 
ing enough  to  show  its  undoubted  origin  in 
the  sensual  percepts,  recepts,  and  concepts 
of  its  primal  founders. 

As  I  have  observed  above,  the  religion 
of  these  people  has  gained  a  certain  degree 
of  abstraction,  and  this  abstraction  is  fur- 
ther shown  by  the  presence  of  certain  phal- 
lic rites  and  ceremonies  in  their  religious 
observances;  but  of  this,  more  anon.* 

In  most  of  the  tribes  of  Equatorial  Af- 
rica, nature-worship  has  been  superseded  by 
ghost-worship,  devil-worship,  or  witch- 
worship,  or,  rather,  by  ghost,  devil,  or  witch 
propitiation;  yet,  in  the  sancity  of  the  fetich, 


(*)  In  a  letter  to  me,  a  naval  officer  of  high  rank 
states  that,  beyond  question  of  doubt,  the  Aleutian 
priests  keep  male  concubines  whom  they  use  in  their 
religious  observances.  He,  also,  gives  other  evidences 
of  phallic  worship  among  these  people. 


RELIGION  AND   LUST.  21 

which  is  everywhere  present,  we  see  a  relic 
of  nature-worship.  Moreover,  many  of 
these  tribes  deify  natural  phenomena,  such 
as  the  sun,  the  moon,  the  stars,  thunder, 
lightning,  etc.,  etc.,  etc.,  showing  that  here, 
too,  in  all  probability,  religious  feeling  had 
its  origin  in  nature  propitiation. 

Abstraction  also  enters,  to  a  certain  ex- 
tent, into  the  religious  beliefs  of  most  of 
these  negroes,  in  whom  primal  materialism 
has  given  place  to  the  unbridled  supersti- 
tion of  crude  spiritism.  The  curious  habit 
these  people  have  of  scraping  a  little  bone 
dust  from  the  skull  of  a  dead  ancestor  and 
then  eating  it  with  their  food,  thus,  as  they 
think,  transmitting  from  the  dead  to  the 
living  the  qualities  of  the  former,  is  close 
kin  to,  and,  in  my  opinion,  is  probably  de- 
rived from,  a  worship  of  the  generative 
principle.  When  we  take  into  considera- 
tion the  fact  that  circumcision,  extensio 
clitoridis,  and  other  phallic  rites  are  ex- 
ceedingly common  and  prevalent  among 


22  RELIGION   AND   LUST. 

these  negroes,  this  opinion  has  strong  evi- 
dence in  its  support.12 

The  Wa-kamba  may  have  some  idea  of 
immortality,  though  observers  have  never 
been  able  to  determine  this  definitely. 
"The  dead  bodies  of  chiefs  are  not  thrown 
to  the  hyenas,  as  with  the  Masai,  but  are 
carefully  buried  instead.  .  .  .  The 
bodies  of  less  important  members  of  the 
tribe  are  simply  thrown  to  the  hyenas."15 

In  this  people,  religious  ideas  are  ex- 
ceedingly primitive  and  indefinite.  They 
seem  to  propitiate  nature,  however,  when 
they  wish  rain,  for  they  offer  up  to  the  rain- 
spirit  votive  offerings  of  bananas,  grain,  and 
beer,  which  they  place  beneath  the  trees. 
This  seems  to  be  their  only  religious  rite 
according  to  Gregory,  who,  in  all  proba- 
bility is  in  error.  For,  in  the  next  sentence, 

(12)  Negroes  of  Benin  and  Sierra  Leone   (Bos- 
man,  loc.  cit.,  p.  526),  Mandingoes  (Waitz,  vol.  ii,  p. 
3),  Bechuanas  (Holub,  loc.  cit.,  p.  398)  ;  quoted  also 
by  Westermarck,  Human  Marriage,  p.  206. 

(13)  Gregory:   The  Great  Rift  Valley,  p.  351. 


RELIGION   AND   LUST. 


he  informs  us  that  these  negroes  practice 
circumcision.  He  thinks  that  they  perform 
this  operation  for  sanitary  reasons,  "as  the 
natives  have  continually  to  ford  streams 
and  wade  through  swamps  abounding  in 
the  larvae  of  Bilharzia  haematuria,  the  rite 
no  doubt  lessens  the  danger  of  incurring 
haematuria."14  This  is  bestowing  upon 
ignorant  and  savage  negroes  a  psychical 
acuteness  which  far  transcends  that  of  the 
laity  of  civilized  races!  What  do  the  Wa- 
kamba  know  of  sanitation,  haematuria,  and 
the  larva  of  Bilharzia!*  Circumcision 
among  these  people  always  occurs  at  pu- 
berty, and  is,  unquestionably,  a  phallic  rite. 
Parenthetically,  it  may  be  stated  here  that 
a  few  of  the  primitive  peoples  still  in  exist- 


(14)   Gregory:    The  Great  Rift  Valley,  p.  351. 

(*)  Inasmuch  as  the  haematuria  occasioned  by  the 
larvae  of  Bilharzia  has  its  origin  in  the  parenchyma  of 
the  kidney,  and,  since  we  have  no  reason  for  believing 
that  this  race  has  any  idea  of  histology  or  pathology,  it 
is  manifest  folly  to  ascribe  circumcision  as  a  phophylac- 
tic  measure  against  this  parasite.  Bilharzia  is  now  con- 
sidered a  true  parasite  by  Wolfe. 


24  RELIGION  AND   LUST. 

ence  appear  to  have  grasped  the  idea  of 
the  life-giving  principle,  and  to  have  estab- 
lished worship  of  the  functio  generations 
without  having  experienced  certain  prelim- 
inary psychical  stages  necessary  for  its  evo- 
lution from  nature-worship.  I  believe, 
however,  that  this  is  apparent  and  not  realj 
nature-worship,  very  probably,  at  one  time 
existed  among  all  these  people. 

The  Kikuyu  have  a  very  elaborate  sys- 
tem of  theogony,  in  which  all  of  the  phe- 
nomena of  nature  with  which  they  are  ac- 
quainted are  deified.  A  goat  is  invariably 
sacrificed  to  the  sun  when  they  set  out  on 
a  journey,  and  its  blood  is  carried  along 
and  sprinkled  on  the  paths  and  bridges  in 
order  to  appease  the  spirits  of  the  forest 
and  the  river. 

Stuhlmann  places  this  tribe  among  the 
Bantu;  from  the  evidence  of  other  observ- 
ers, however,  they  seem  to  be  Nilotic  Ham- 
ites,  and  belong  properly  to  the  Masai.15 

(15)    Stuhlmann:    Mit  Emin  Pasha,  p.  848. 


RELIGION  AND   LUST.  25 

This  would  account  for  the  similarity  of 
method  in  circumcision,  which,  among  both 
Kikuyu  and  Masai,  is  incomplete.  John- 
ston calls  attention  to  this  very  peculiar 
method  and  describes  it  minutely  in  a  Latin 
foot-note.16 

The  Masai  are  mixed  devil,  nature,  and 
phallic  worshipers;  the  last  mentioned  cult 
being  evolved,  beyond  question,  from  na- 
ture-worship. It  may  be  set  down  as  an 
established  fact  that,  where  nature-worship 
does  not  exist  in  some  form  or  other  among 
primitive  peoples,  phallic  worship  is  like- 
wise absent.  Indeed,  such  peoples  gener- 
ally have  no  religious  feeling  whatever. 
They  may  have  some  shadowy  idea  of  an 
evil  spirit  like  the  "Aurimwantya  dsongo 
ngombe  auri  kinemu"  the  Old  Man  of  the 
Woods17  of  the  Wa-pokomo,  but  that  is  all. 

Carl  Lumholtz,  writing  of  the  Austra- 

(16)  Johnston:      The   Kilima-Njaro   Expedition, 
p.  412. 

(17)  Gregory:   The  Great  Rift  Valley,  p.  344. 


26  RELIGION   AND   LUST. 

lians,  says :  "The  Australian  blacks  do  not, 
like  many  other  savage  tribes,  attach  any 
ideas  of  divinity  to  the  sun  or  moon.  On 
one  of  our  expeditions  the  full  moon  rose 
large  and  red  over  the  palm  forest.  Struck 
by  the  splendor  of  the  scene,  I  pointed  at 
the  moon  and  asked  my  companions,  'Who 
made  it?'  They  answered,  'Other  blacks.' 
Thereupon  I  asked,  Who  made  the  sun?' 
and  got  the  same  answer.  The  natives  also 
believe  that  they  themselves  can  produce 
rain,  particularly  with  the  help  of  wizards. 
To  produce  rain  they  call  milka.  When  on 
our  expeditions  we  were  overtaken  by  vio- 
lent tropical  storms,  my  blacks  always 
became  enraged  at  the  strangers  who  had 
caused  the  rain."18  In  regard  to  their  be- 
lief in  the  existence  of  a  double  or  soul, 
the  same  author  sums  up  as  follows: 
"Upon  the  whole,  it  may  be  said  that  these 
children  of  nature  are  unable  to  conceive 
a  human  soul  independent  of  the  body,  and 

(18)    Lumholtz:   Among  Cannibals,  p.  282. 


RELIGION  AND  LUST.  27 

the  future  life  of  the  individual  lasts  no 
longer  than  his  physical  remains."19  Mr. 
Mann,  of  New  South  Wales,  who,  accord- 
ing to  Lumholtz,  has  made  a  thirty  years' 
study  of  the  Australians,  says  that  the  na- 
tives have  no  religion  whatever,  except  fear 
of  the  "devil-devil."20  Another  writer,  and 
one  abundantly  qualified  to  judge,  says  that 
they  acknowledge  no  supreme  being,  have 
no  idols,  and  believe  only  in  an  evil  spirit 
whom  they  do  not  worship.  They  say  that 
this  spirit  is  afraid  of  fire,  so  they  never 
venture  abroad  after  dusk  without  a  fire- 
stick.21 

"I  verily  believe  we  have  arrived  at  the 
sum  total  of  their  religion,  if  a  superstitious 
dread  of  the  unknown  can  be  so  designated. 
Their  mental  capacity  does  not  admit  of 
their  grasping  the  higher  truths  of  pure 


(19)  Ibid,  p.  279. 

(20)  Lumholtz:  Among  Cannibals,  p.  283. 

(21)  Ibid.,  p.  283. 


28  RELIGION   AND  LUST. 

religion,"  says  Eden.22  It  is  simply  an  in- 
herent fear  of  the  unknown ;  the  natural,  in- 
born caution  of  thousands  of  years  of  inher- 
ited experiences. 

In  these  savages  we  see  a  race  whose 
psychical  status  is  so  low  in  the  intellectual 
scale  that  they  have  not  evolved  any  idea  of 
the  double  or  soul.  The  mental  capacity  of 
the  Australians,  I  take  it,  is  no  lower  than 
was  that  of  any  race  (no  matter  how  intel- 
lectual it  may  be  at  the  present  time)  at  one 
period  of  its  history.  All  races  have  a  ten- 
dency toward  psychical  development  under 
favorable  surroundings;  it  has  been  a 
progress  instead  of  a  decadence,  a  rise  in- 
stead of  a  fall!  Evolution  has  not  ceased; 
nor  will  it  end  until  Finis  is  written  at  the 
bottom  of  Time's  last  page. 

There  are  yet  other  people  who  believe 
in  the  supernatural,  yet  who  have  no  idea  of 
immortality.  When  Gregory  ascended  the 


(22)   Eden:    The  Fifth  Continent,  p.  69;  quoted 
also  by  Lumholtz:   Among  Cannibals. 


RELIGION  AND  LUST.  29 

glacier  of  Mount  Kenya,  the  water  froze  in 
the  cooking-pots  which  had  been  filled  over 
night.  His  carriers  were  terribly  alarmed 
by  the  phenomenon,  and  swore  that  the 
water  was  bewitched!  The  explorer 
scolded  them  for  their  silliness  and  bade 
them  set  the  pots  on  the  fire,  which,  having 
been  done,  "the  men  sat  round  and  anx- 
iously watched;  when  it  melted  they  joy- 
fully told  me  that  the  demon  was  expelled, 
and  I  told  them  they  could  now  use  the 
water;  but  as  soon  as  my  back  was  turned 
they  poured  it  away,  and  refilled  their  pots 
from  the  adjoining  brook."23 

Stanley  declares  that  no  traces  of  reli- 
gious feeling  can  be  found  in  the  Wahuma. 
"They  believe  most  thoroughly  in  the  exist- 
ence of  an  evil  influence  in  the  form  of  a 
man,  who  exists  in  uninhabited  places,  as  a 
wooded,  darksome  gorge,  or  large  extent  of 
reedy  brake,  but  that  he  can  be  propitiated 


(23)   Gregory:    The  Great  Rift  Valley,  p.  170. 


30  RELIGION   AND   LUST. 

by  gifts;  therefore  the  lucky  hunter  leaves 
a  portion  of  the  meat,  which  he  tosses,  how- 
ever, as  he  would  to  a  dog,  or  he  places  an 
egg,  or  a  small  banana,  or  a  kid-skin,  at  the 
door  of  the  miniature  dwelling,  which  is 
always  at  the  entrance  to  the  zeriba."24 

This  observer  shows  that  he  does  not 
know  the  true  meaning  of  the  word  reli- 
gion; the  example  that  he  gives  demon- 
strates the  fact  that  these  negroes  do  have 
religious  feeling.  The  simple  act  of  offer- 
ing propitiatory  gifts  to  the  "evil  influence" 
is,  from  the  very  nature  of  the  deed,  a  re- 
ligious observance.  Furthermore,  these 
savages  have  charms  and  fetiches  innumer- 
able, which,  in  my  opinion,  are  relics  of 
nature-worship.  The  miniature  house 
mentioned  by  Stanley  is  common  to  the  ma- 
jority of  the  equatorial  tribes,  and  seems  to 
be  a  kind  of  common  fetich;  i.  e.,  one  that 
is  enjoyed  by  the  entire  tribe.  It  is  men- 

(24)   Stanley:    In  Darkest  Africa,  vol.  ii,  p.  400. 


RELIGION   AND   LUST.  31 

tioned  by  Du  Chaillu,  Chaille  Long, 
Stanley,  and  many  others.25 

Du  Chaillu  tells  of  one  tribe,  the  Baka- 
lai,  in  which  the  women  worship  a  particu- 
lar divinity  named  Njambai.26  This  writer 
is  even  more  inexact  than  Stanley,  hence,  we 
get  very  little  scientific  data  from  his  vol- 
uminous works.  From  what  he  says  of 
Njambai,*  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  he 
is  a  negro  Priapus ;  this,  however,  is  a  con- 
jectural belief  and  has  no  scientific  war- 
rant 

The  Tucuna  Indians  of  the  Amazon 
Valley,  who  resemble  the  Passes,  Juris,  and 
Muahes  in  physical  appearance  and  cus- 
toms, social  and  otherwise,  are  devil-wor- 
shipers. They  are  very  much  afraid  of  the 
Jupari,  or  devil,  who  seems  to  be  "simply 


(25)  Du    Chaillu:     Equatorial    Africa;    Chaille 
Long:  Naked  Truths  of  Naked  People;  Stanley:    In 
Darkest  Africa. 

(26)  Du  Chaillu:    Equatorial  Africa,  p.  240. 
(*)   Possibly,  this  god  is  the  same  as  the%god  men- 
tioned by  Livingstone,  Baker,  and  Stanley. 


32  RELIGION  AND  LUST. 

a  mischievous  imp,  who  is  at  the  bottom  of 
all  those  mishaps  of  their  daily  life,  the 
causes  of  which  are  not  very  immediate  or 
obvious  to  their  dull  understandings.  The 
idea  of  a  Creator  or  a  beneficent  God  has 
not  entered  the  minds  of  these  Indians."27 

The  Peruvians,  at  the  time  of  the  Span- 
ish conquest,  worshiped  nature ;  that  is,  the 
sun  was  deified  under  the  name  of  Pachac- 
amac,  the  Giver  of  Life,  and  was  worshiped 
as  such.  The  Inca,  who  was  his  earthly 
representative,  was  likewise  his  chief  priest, 
though  there  was  a  great  High  Priest,  or 
V iliac  Vmu,  who  stood  at  the  head  of  the 
hierarchy,  but  who  was  second  in  dignity  to 
the  Inca.28  The  moon,  wife  of  the  sun,  the 
stars,  thunder,  lightning,  and  other  natural 
phenomena  were  also  deified.  But,  as  it 
invariably  happens,  where  nature-worship 
is  allowed  to  undergo  its  natural  evolution, 

(27)  Bates:  The  Naturalist  on  the  River  Ama- 
zon, p.  381. 

(28).Prescott:    The  Conquest  of  Peru,  vol.  i,  p. 


RELIGION   AND   LUST.  33 

certain  elements  of  phallic  worship  had 
made  their  appearance.  These  I  will  dis- 
cuss later  on. 

The  great  temple  of  the  sun  was  at 
Cuzco,  "where,  under  the  munificence  of 
successive  sovereigns,  it  had  become  so  rich 
that  it  received  the  name  of  Coricancha,  or 
'the  Place  of  Gold.'  "29  According  to  the 
relaclon  of  Sarmiento,  and  the  commentar- 
ies of  Garcilasso  and  other  Spanish  writers, 
this  building,  which  was  surrounded  by 
chapels  and  smaller  edifices,  and  which 
stood  in  the  heart  of  the  city,  must  have  been 
truly  magnificent  with  its  lavish  adornments 
of  virgin  gold! 

Unlike  the  Aztecs,  a  kindred  race  of 
people,  the  Peruvians  rarely  sacrificed  hu- 
man beings  to  their  divinities,  but,  like  the 
religion  of  the  former,  the  religion  of  the 
latter  had  become  greatly  developed  along 


(29)    Prescott:    The  Conquest  of  Peru,  vol.  i,  p. 
95- 


34  RELIGION   AND  LUST. 

ceremonial  lines,  as  we  will  see  later  on  in 
this  essay. 

It  is  a  far  cry  from  Peru  co  Japan,  from 
the  Incas  to  the  Ainus,  yet  these  widely  sep- 
arated races  practiced  religions  that  were 
almost  identical  in  point  of  fundamental 
principles.  Both  worshiped  nature,  but  the 
Peruvians  were  far  ahead  of  the  Ainus  in 
civilization,  and  their  religion,  as  far  as 
ritual  and  ceremony  are  concerned,  far  sur- 
passed that  of  the  "Hairy  Men"  when 
viewed  from  an  aesthetic  standpoint.  Eth- 
ically, I  am  inclined  to  believe  the  religion 
of  the  Ainus  is  just  as  high  as  was  that  of 
the  Incas. 

Literature  is  indebted  to  the  Rev.  John 
Batchelor  for  that  which  is,  probably,  the 
most  readable  book  that  has  ever  been  pub- 
lished about  these  interesting  people;  from 
a  scientific  standpoint,  however,  this  work  is 
greatly  lacking.  Many  ethnologists  and 
anthropologists  considered  the  Ainu  autoch- 
thonic  to  Japan;  I  am  forced  to  conclude 


RELIGION  AND  LUST.  35 

from  the  evidence,  however,  that  he  is  an 
emigrant,  and  that  he  came  originally  from 
North  China  or  East  Siberia.  Be  he  emi- 
grant or  indigene,  one  thing  is  certain, 
namely,  that  he  has  been  an  inhabitant  of 
the  Japanese  Archipelago  for  thousands  of 
years.  The  oldest  book  in  the  Japanese  lan- 
guage has  this  in  it  anent  the  Ainus  :  "When 
our  august  ancestors  descended  from  heaven 
in  a  boat,  they  found  upon  this  island  sev- 
eral barbarous  races,  the  most  fierce  of 
whom  were  the  Ainu."29a 

The  Ainu  is  probably  the  purest  type  of 
primitive  man  in  existence.  I  had  been  led 
to  believe  by  the  work  of  Miss  Bird30  that 
these  people  were  on  a  par  with  the  Austra- 
lians, and  that  they  had  no  religious  ideas 
whatever.  (Vogt  seems  to  advance  this  con- 
clusion also,31  while  De  Quatrefages32*  ,ap- 


Batchelor:    The  Ainu  of  Japan,  p.  13. 

(30)  Bird:    Unbeaten  Tracks  in  Japan. 

(31)  Vogt:   Lectures  on  Man. 

(32)  De  Quatrefages:    The  Human  Species. 

(*)   De    Quatrefages,    in    his    Hommes    Fossiles, 


36  RELIGION  AND  LUST. 

pears  to  have  omitted  this  people  from  his 
tabulation.  Peschel  places  them  among  the 
Giliaks  on  the  Lower  Amoor,  and  the  in- 
habitants of  the  Kurile  Islands.33  These 
tribes  are  mixed  nature,  devil,  and  phallic 
worshipers.)  Batchelor,  however,  shows 
very  clearly  that  these  people  do  have  a  re- 
ligion, and  that  this  religion  is  highly  devel- 
oped. 

Their  chief  god,  or  rather  goddess  (for 
the  Ainus  regard  the  female  as  being  higher 
than  the  male  as  far  as  gods  are  concerned) , 
is  the  sun.34  Like  the  Peruvians,  they  re- 
gard the  sun  as  the  Creator,  but  they  are 
unlike  them  in  the  fact  that  they  think  that 
they  cannot  reach  the  goddess  by  direct  ap- 
peal. She  must  be  addressed  through  inter- 
mediaries or  messengers.  These  messen- 
gers, the  goddess  of  the  fire,  the  goddess  of 
the  water,  etc.,  are  in  turn  addressed 

places  the  Ainus  anthropologically  among  the  Pri- 
meval Teutons! 

(33)  Peschel:    The  Races  of  Man,  p.  388. 

(34)  Batchelor:   The  Ainu  of  Japan,  p.  89. 


RELIGION   AND   LUST.  37 

through  the  agency  of  inao,  or  prayer-sticks. 
This  intermediary  idea  is  curiously  like 
some  practices  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
church,  or,  rather,  of  communicants,  who 
get  the  saints  to  carry  their  petitions  to  God. 

The  inao  are  peculiar,  inasmuch  as 
nothing  exactly  like  them  is  known.  The 
feather  prayer-plumes  of  some  of  the  West- 
ern Indians  are  used  for  like  purposes,  but 
these  are  offered  directly  to  the  Great  Spirit, 
and  not  to  intermediaries.  "Inao,  briefly 
described,  are  pieces  of  whittled  willow 
wood,  having  the  shavings  attached  to  the 
top."35  Like  the  Aleutians,  when  these  peo- 
ple kill  a  bear  or  other  wild  animal,  they 
propitiate  its  spirit  by  bestowing  upon  it  the 
most  fulsome  compliments,  and,  like  the  re- 
ligion of  these  Indians,  the  religion  of  the 
Ainus  has  developed  along  natural  lines, 
and  shows  certain  phallic  elements. 

We  see  from  the  examples  here  given, 
that  religious  feeling  had  its  origin  in  the 

(35)  Batchelor:   The  Ainu  of  Japan,  p.  87. 


38  RELIGION   AND  LUST. 

idea  of  propitiation ;  in  fact,  that  it  was  born 
in  fear,  and  by  fear  was  it  fostered.  We  see, 
furthermore,  that  man  was  not  created  with 
religious  feeling  as  a  psychical  trait,  but 
that  he  acquired  it  later  on.  We  see,  finally, 
that  religious  feeling  is  based,  primarily  and 
fundamentally,  on  one  of  the  chief  laws  of 
nature — self-protection.  The  evolution  and 
growth  of  Ethics  demonstrate  this  beyond 
peradventure. 

It  is  not  at  all  probable  that  man  in  the 
beginning,  just  after  his  evolution  from  his 
ape-like  ancestor,  had,  at  first,  any  belief 
whatever  in  supernatural  agencies.  In  his 
struggle  for  existence,  all  of  his  powers  were 
directed  toward  the  procurement  of  his  food 
and  the  preservation  of  life;  the  pithecoid 
man  was  only  a  degree  higher  than  the 
beasts  in  the  scale  of  animal  life.  His  psy- 
chic being,  as  yet,  remained,  as  it  were,  in 
ovo,  and  a  long  period  of  time  must  have 
elapsed  before  he  began  to  formulate  and  to 
recognize  a  system  of  theogony.  After 


RELIGION  AND  LUST.  39 

years  of  experience,  during  which  the  laws 
of  heredity  and  progressive  evolution 
played  prominent  parts,  he  took  precedence 
over  other  animals,  and  his  struggle  for  ex- 
istence became  easier.  He  then  had  time  to 
study  the  wonderful  and,  to  him,  mysterious 
phenomena  of  nature.  His  limited  knowl- 
edge could  not  explain  the  various  natural 
operations  by  which  he  was  surrounded, 
therefore  he  looked  upon  them  as  being 
mysterious  and  supernatural.  His  psychical 
being  became  active  and  inquiring,  to  sat- 
isfy which  he  created  a  system  of  gods 
which  was  founded  on  natural  phenomena. 
At  first,  the  gods  of  primitive  man  were, 
probably,  few  in  number,  and  the  chief  god 
of  all  was  the  sun.  Man  early  recognized 
the  sun's  importance  in  the  economy  of  na- 
ture; this  beautiful  star,  rising  in  the  east 
in  the  morning,  marching  through  the  heav- 
ens during  the  day,  and  sinking  behind  the 
western  horizon  in  the  evening,  must  have 
been,  to  the  awakening  soul  of  man,  a  source 


40  RELIGION  AND  LUST. 

of  endless  conjecture  and  debate.  What  was 
more  natural  than  his  making  the  sun  the 
greatest  god  in  his  system  of  theogony? 
Man  recognized  in  him  the  source  of  all 
life,  and,  when  he  arrived  at  an  age  when  he 
could  use  abstract  ideation  in  formulating 
his  religion,  he  deified  the  life-giving  func- 
tion as  he  noticed  it  in  himself ;  he  began  to 
worship  the  generative  principle.  Solar 
worship  and  its  direct  descendant,  phallic 
worship,  at  one  time  or  another  were  the  re- 
ligions of  almost  every  race  on  the  face  of 
the  globe.  Solar  worship,  owing  to  its  ma- 
terial quality,  has  long  since  been  aban- 
doned by  civilized  man;  but  phallic  wor- 
ship, the  first  abstract  religion  evolved  by 
man,  has  taken  deeper  root;  its  fundamental 
principles  are  still  present,  though  they 
have  their  seat  in  our  subliminal  conscious- 
ness, and  we  are,  therefore,  not  actively  con- 
scious of  their  existence.  But  before  enter- 
ing on  the  discussion  of  this  last  point,  let  us 
turn  for  a  time  to  a  study  of  phallic  worship- 


CHAPTER  II. 

PHALLIC  WORSHIP. 

Phallic  worship,  in  some  form  or  other, 
has  been  practiced  by  almost  every  race 
under  the  sun.  Indeed,  among  primitive 
peoples,  those  who  do  not  practice  this  cult 
are  so  few  in  number  that  they  have,  prac- 
tically, no  weight  whatever  in  a  discussion 
of  this  subject.  Moreover,  those  primitive 
peoples  who  do  not  worship  the  generative 
principle,  either  directly  or  indirectly,  are 
without  any  religion  whatsoever,  and  are 
the  very  lowest  of  all  mankind  in  point  of 
intelligence.  I  have  only  to  cite  the  Tierra 
del  Fuegians,  the  Bushmen,  the  Australians, 
and  the  Akka  or  Ticki-Ticki,  the  Pygmies 
of  Central  Africa,  to  prove  the  truthfulness 
of  this  assertion.  There  are  other  peoples 
who  would  serve  as  examples,  but  it  would 
be  a  work  of  supererogation  to  enumerate 
them  to  even  the  casual  reader. 

D'Hancarville,  in  his  magnificent  work, 


42  RELIGION  AND  LUST. 

has  traced  the  progress  of  the  worship  of  the 
generative  principle  over  the  entire  world, 
while  Knight,  in  his  scholarly  essay,36  has 
brought  out  its  psychological  truths  in  a 
manner  which  cannot  be  surpassed.  It  is 
not  my  purpose  to  enter  into  a  detailed  ac- 
count of  this  cult;  I  propose  rather  to  dis- 
cuss its  probable  origin  in  the  beginning, 
and  to  give  a  brief  outline  of  its  history,  as 
it  is  to.be  observed  among  living  peoples.  I 
wish  to  show,  also,  its  connection  with  cer- 
tain religious  ceremonies  and  festivals  of 
Christian  peoples,  which  had  their  origin, 
ab  initio,  in  the  worship  of  Priapus.  And, 
before  beginning  the  discussion  of  this  sub- 
ject, I  beg  to  remind  the  reader  that  a  priest 
of  Priapus  regarded  his  sistrum  as  being 
just  as  sacred  as  a  Catholic  priest  now  con- 
siders any  vessel  or  robe  used  in  the  service 
of  mass,  and  that  the  priests  of  Brahma  look 
on  the  Lingam  with  as  much  reverence  and 
awe  as  did  the  Levites  on  the  Ark  of  the 

(36)  Knight:   The  Worship  of  Priapus. 


RELIGION  AND  LUST.  43 

Covenant  and  the  Holy  of  Holies.  Phallic 
worship  is  a  religion,  the  oldest  abstract  re- 
ligion in  existence.  Fundamentally  the  Cre- 
ator— the  Life  Giver — is  the  phallic  wor- 
shiper's god.  Is  he  very  far  wrong  in  all 
that  is  absolutely  essential?  "Men  think 
they  know  because  they  are  sure  they  feel, 
and  are  firmly  convinced  because  strongly 
agitated.  Hence  proceed  that  haste  and  vio- 
lence with  which  devout  persons  of  all  re- 
ligions condemn  the  rites  and  doctrines  of 
others,  and  the  furious  zeal  and  bigotry  with 
which  they  maintain  their  own,  while,  per- 
haps, if  both  were  equally  understood,  both 
would  be  found  to  have  the  same  meaning, 
and  only  to  differ  in  the  modes  of  convey- 
ing it."37 

The  Pueblo  Indians  of  New  Mexico  are 
worshipers  of  the  generative  principle,  and, 
like  most  religious  sects,  have  evolved  some 
very  curious  rites  and  ceremonies.  The 
ancient  temples  of  Venus  or  Aphrodite  were 

(37)   Knight:    The  Worship  of  Pr'iapus,  p.  14. 


44  RELIGION  AND  LUST. 

filled  with  hetarae,  who  were  necessary  ad- 
juncts for  the  proper  performance  of  the 
mysteries  of  Priapus.  These  Indians,  how- 
ever, will  not  allow  women  to  enter  into 
their  sacred  ceremonies,  but,  on  the  con- 
trary, emasculate  men  (by  occasioning  or- 
ganic and  functional  degeneration  of  the 
sexual  organs) ,  who  serve  as  hetarae  to  the 
chiefs  and  shamans  or  priests.*  These  an- 
drogynes are  called  mujerados,  a  term 
which  aptly  describes  their  sexual  condition. 
"In  order  to  cultivate  a  mujerado,  a  very 
powerful  man  is  chosen,  and  he  is  made  to 
masturbate  excessively  and  ride  constantly. 
Gradually  such  irritable  weakness  of  the 
genital  organs  is  engendered  that,  in  riding, 
great  loss  of  semen  is  induced.  This  condi- 
tion of  irritability  passes  into  paralytic  im- 
potence. Then  the  testicles  and  penis  atro- 
phy, the  hair  of  the  beard  falls  out,  the  voice 

(*)  The  Aleutians,  according  to  the  testimony  of 
unimpeachable  witnesses,  make  their  neophytes  pass 
through  like  physical  exercises  in  preparing  them  for 
their  duties  in  celebrating  Priapic  Rites. 


RELIGION  AND  LUST.  45 

loses  its  depth  and  compass,  and  physical 
strength  and  energy  decrease.  Inclinations 
and  disposition  become  feminine.  The  mu- 
jerado  loses  his  position  in  society  as  a  man. 
He  takes  on  feminine  manners  and  customs, 
and  associates  with  women;  yet,  for  reli- 
gious reasons,  he  is  held  in  high  honor."88 
The  phallic  ceremonies  of  the  Pueblos  take 
place  in  the  spring,  when  the  life  principle 
is  exceedingly  active  throughout  all  nature. 
In  all  probability  the  "botes"  of  the 
Montana  Indians  and  the  "burdachs"  of  the 
Washington  tribes  serve  as  masculine  hetarae 
to  the  chiefs  and  medicine  men,  though  this 
has  not  been  definitely  determined.  Dr. 
Holder  described  a  typical  "bote"  of  the 
Absaroke  tribe  in  the  New  York  Medical 
Journal,  1889.  This  androgyne,  in  many  re- 
spects, resembled  the  mujerados  of  the  Pu- 
eblo Indians,  and  probably  served  a  like 
purpose  in  his  tribe. 

(38)   Krafft-Ebing :      Psychopathia     Sexualis,     p. 
2OI ;  see  also  Hammond:   Impotence  in  the  Male. 


46  RELIGION   AND  LUST. 

According  to  Ross,  a  Konyaga  woman, 
when  she  has  a  good-looking  boy,  dresses 
him  in  girl's  clothes  and  brings  him  up  as  a 
female.  When  he  arrives  at  a  suitable  age 
he  is  sent  to  wait  on  the  priests  of  the  tribe 
and  is  introduced  by  them  into  the  sacred 
mysteries  of  their  cult;  in  fact,  he  becomes  a 
masculine  hetara. 

When  we  read  of  such  things  we  feel 
pretty  much  as  Herodotus  felt  when  he  saw 
the  naked  women  of  Mendes  submitting 

themselves    Openly    (es  emSetfii/  avO PO>TT<DV) 

to  the  embraces  of  the  sacred  goat.*  To 
the  Greek  historian  this  act  was  simply  hor- 
rible (re/aas);  and  yet  these  Egyptians  ex- 
perienced no  repugnance  whatever.  To 
them  it  represented  the  incarnation  of  the 
deity,  and  was,  therefore,  a  sacred  and  holy 
action,  just  as  masculine  hetarism  is  re- 
garded as  a  holy  profession  among  the  Kon- 
yagas.  Phallic  hetarism  is  one  of  the  sacra- 


(*)    Herodotus:  Euterpe,  46. 


RELIGION   AND   LUST.  47 

ments  of  the  Konyaga  church,  and,  as  such, 
it  is  held  in  all  that  reverence  and  awe  with 
which  the  savage  devotee  endows  the  mys- 
teries of  his  faith.* 

The  ancient  Hebrews,  ancestors  of  one 
of  the  most  ancient  of  the  civilized  races  of 
the  earth,  held  it  in  high  honor.  Even  wise 
King  Solomon,  in  the  days  of  his  old  age, 
turned  from  the  abstractedly  pure  religion 
of  his  father  "to  Astoreth,  the  goddess  of 


(*)  Masculine  hetarism  is  still  in  vogue  among 
many  primitive  peoples,  and  is  distinctly  a  religious 
rite.  "The  Kanats  of  New  Caledonia  frequently  as- 
semble at  night  in  a  cabin  to  give  themselves  up  to  this 
kind  of  debauchery.  ...  In  the  whole  of  Amer- 
ica, from  north  to  south,  similar  customs  have  existed 
or  still  exist."  Letourneau:  The  Evolution  of  Mar- 
riage, p.  62.  The  same  author  says:  "It  was  also  a 
widely  spread  custom  throughout  Polynesia,  and  even 
a  special  deity  presided  over  it.  The  Southern  Califor- 
nians  did  the  same,  and  the  Spanish  missionaries,  on 
their  arrival  in  the  country,  found  men  dressed  as 
women  and  assuming  their  part.  They  were  trained 
to  this  from  youth,  and  often  publicly  married  to  the 
chiefs.  Nero  was  evidently  a  mere  plagiarist.  The 
existence  of  analogous  customs  has  been  proved  against 
the  Guyacurus  of  La  Plata,  the  natives  of  the  Isthmus 
of  Darien,  the  tribes  of  Louisiana,  and  the  ancient  Illi- 


48  RELIGION   AND   LUST. 

the  Zidonians,  and  to  Milcom,  the  abomi- 
nation of  the  Ammonites."39  He  was  guilty 
of  constructing  a  "high  place"  for  Che- 
mosh,  "the  abomination  of  Moab."40  Any 
good  modern  biblical  encyclopedia  will  tell 
the  reader  about  Astoreth  and  her  worship, 
and  what  the  "high  places"  and  the 
"groves"  were. 

Even  the  "good  kings,"  such  as  Asa, 
Amaziah,  et  al.,  did  not  remove  the  high 
places  and  the  groves,  for  we  read  that,  not- 
withstanding the  fact  that  these  kings  did 
that  which  was  right  in  the  sight  of  the 
Lord,  they  did  not  remove  the  high  places. 
In  the  case  of  Amaziah,  it  is  written : 

"And  he  did  that  which  was  right  in  the 
sight  of  the  Lord,  yet  not  like  David,  his 
father;  he  did  according  to  all  things  as 
Joash,  his  father,  did. 

"Howbeit,  the  high  places  were  not 
taken  away:  as  yet  the  people  did  sacrifice 

(39)  /  Kings:  chap  xi,  verse  5. 

(40)  Ibid.,  verse  7. 


RELIGION   AND   LUST.  49 

and  burnt  incense  on  the  high  places."41  All 
of  the  so-called  "wicked  kings"  were  phal- 
lic worshipers,  and  both  male  and  female 
hetarism  flourished  during  their  reigns.  We 
read  of  Josiah,  a  "good  king,"  "And  he 
broke  down  the  houses  of  the  sodomites 
(kedescheim)  that  were  by  the  house  of  the 
Lord."42  Here,  in  unmistakable  terms 
(kedescheim),  the  phallic  act  of  the  hetara 
is  specified. 

Herodotus  wrote :  "Almost  all  mankind 
consort  with  women  in  their  sacred  temples, 
except  in  Greece  and  Egypt."43  This  is  a 
queer  mistake  for  a  Greek  to  make,  yet  this 
historian  is  noted  for  his  unreliability,  and 
we  should  not  feel  surprised  at  this  gross 
error.  Concerning  the  Aphrodite  of  Aby- 
dos,  what  she  was  and  what  took  place  in 
her  temples,  is  a  matter  of  history.  Indeed, 
this  goddess  was  surnamed  Porne!  In  Co- 

(41)  II  Kings:  chap,  xiv,  verses  3,  4. 

(42)  Ibid.,  chap,  xxiii,  verse  7. 

(43)  Herodotus:    Euterpe,  64. 


50  RELIGION   AND   LUST. 

rinth,  delubral  hetarism  was  openly  prac- 
ticed; also  at  Bubastis  and  Naucratis  in 
Egypt.  Royal  princesses  were  pallacides 
in  the  temple  of  Ammon ;  in  fact,  they  took 
pride  in  the  title  of  pallakisf*  "It  is  known 
what  excessive  debauchery  took  place  in 
the  'groves'  and  'high  places'  of  the  'Great 
Goddess.'  The  custom  was  so  deeply 
rooted  that  in  the  grotto  of  Bethlehem  what 
was  done  formerly  in  the  name  of  Adonis  is 
to-day  in  the  name  of  the  Virgin  Mary  by 
Christian  pilgrims;  and  the  Mussulman 
hadjls  do  likewise  in  the  sanctuaries  of 
Mecca  !"44t 

(*)  Strabo,  when  writing  of  the  Armenians,  who 
were  phallic  worshipers,  says:  "It  is  the  custom  of  the 
most  illustrious  personages  to  consecrate  their  virgin 
daughters  to  this  goddess  (AnaTtis).  This  in  no  way 
prevents  them  from  finding  husbands,  even  after  they 
have  prostituted  themselves  for  a  long  time  in  the  tem- 
ples of  Anaitis.  No  man  feels  on  this  account  any 
repugnance  to  take  them  as  wives."  Strabo:  vol.  xi., 
14;  quoted  also  by  Letourneau:  The  Evolution  of 
Marriage,  p.  46. 

(44)  Reclus:  Primitive  Folk,  p.  69 ;  Sepp:  Heiden- 
thum  u.  Chris tenthum. 

(t)   Brugsch  Bey  is  of  this  same  opinion. 


RELIGION  AND  LUST.  51 

But  let  us  return  to  primitive  peoples, 
from  whose  customs  and  beliefs  we  can 
learn  what  our  own  ancestors  must  have  be- 
lieved before  the  besom  of  civilization 
swept  aside  the  crudities  of  savagery. 

The  Khonds  of  India  are  phallic  wor- 
shipers, and,  in  the  practice  of  their  reli- 
gion, Priapus  saves  many  a  girl  who  would 
be,  otherwise,  offered  up  on  the  bloody  al- 
tars of  their  divinities.  The  pregnant 
woman  is  sacred,  hence,  religious  prostitu- 
tion is  exceedingly  prevalent.  But  it  fre- 
quently happens  that  some  unfortunate 
creature,  who  is  not  pleasing  to  the  sham- 
ans, is  seized,  tied  to  the  stake  and  butch- 
ered.45 As  the  blood  flows  down  and  del- 
uges the  ground,  "the  divine  spirit  enters 
into  the  priest  and  inspires  him."40  This 
sacrifice  is  of  itself  a  phallic  rite ;  the  blood- 
offering  is  supposed  to  be  exceedingly  ac- 
ceptable to  Earth,  the  mother  of  all  things. 

(45)  Sherwill:   The  Rajmahal  Hills. 

(46)  Reclus:   Primitive  Folk,  p.  317. 


52  RELIGION  AND  LUST. 

Blood  is  the  essence  of  the  life-giving  prin- 
ciple; hence,  the  essence  is  returned  to  the 
great  Giver,  as  a  propitiatory  offering.* 

In  point  of  fact,  the  worship  of  the  gen- 
erative principle  is  everywhere  prevalent  in 
India.t  In  the  Lingam,  or  holy  altar  of  the 
Brahmins,  we  see  a  conjunction  of  the  male 
and  female  sexual  organs,  while  religious 
prostitution,  in  the  shape  of  hetarism, 

(*)  Among  certain  peoples  the  blood  and  the  semen 
bore  a  close  relationship;  by  certain  races  they  were 
considered  analogous.  The  Old  Testament,  the  Ve- 
das,  the  Sagas,  and  many  references  of  Greek,  Latin, 
Egyptian,  Hindu,  and  Persian  mythology  point  to  this 
as  being  conclusive. 

(t)  Speaking  of  the  ceremony  of  priestly  preliba- 
tion  as  it  was  practiced  in  the  Kingdom  of  Malabar, 
Forbes  writes  as  follows :  "The  ecclesiastic  power  took 
precedence  of  the  civil  on  this  particular  point,  and  the 
sovereign  himself  passed  under  the  yoke.  Like  the  other 
women,  the  queen  had  to  submit  to  the  right  of  preliba- 
tion  exercised  by  the  high  priest,  who  had  a  right  to 
the  first  three  nights,  and  who  was  paid  fifty  pieces  of 
gold  besides  for  his  trouble."  Forbes:  Oriental  Me- 
moirs, vol.  i,  p.  446;  quoted  also  by  Letourneau: 
The  Evolution  of  Marriage,  p.  48.  De  Remusat  says 
that,  in  Cambodia,  the  daughters  of  poor  parents  retain 
their  virginity  longer  than  their  richer  sisters  simply  be- 
cause they  have  not  the  money  with  which  to  pay  the 
priest  for  defloration ! 


RELIGION   AND   LUST.  53 

crowds  the  inner  courts  and  corridors  of  al- 
most every  temple  in  the  land  with  hiero- 
dules  and  bayaderes.  The  Vedas  abound 
in  references,  either  direct  or  indirect,  to 
phallic  worship.  Indeed,  according  to 
some  authorities,  the  Hindu  Brahma 
is  the  same  as  the  Greek  Pan,*  "who  is  the 
creative  spirit  of  the  deity  transfused 
through  matter."47 

Hundreds  of  pages  have  been  written  on 
snake-worship,  in  which  a  wonderful 
amount  of  metaphysical  lore  has  been  ex- 
pended. Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  devotes 


(*)  "The  people  have  put  the  idol  named  Coppal 
in  a  neighboring  house;  there  she  is  served  by  priests 
and  Devadichi,  01  slaves  of  the  gods.  These  are  pros- 
titute girls,  whose  employment  is  to  dance  and  to  ring 
little  bells  in  cadence  while  singing  infamous  songs, 
either  in  the  pagoda  or  in  the  streets  when  the  idol  is 
carried  out  in  state,"  writes  Letourneau  in  The  Evolu- 
tion of  Marriage,  quoting  from  Letters  edifiantes.  Cop- 
pal  was  and  is  a  Brahminical  Venus,  and  her  worship 
is  wholly  phallic  in  character.  The  ancient  Indo-Iran- 
ians  worshiped  a  similar  deity.  The  worship  of  Coppal, 
both  in  ritual  and  in  significance,  is  identical  with  that 
of  the  Greek  Aphrodite. 

(47)   Brugsch,  Knight,  Miiller,  et  al 


54  RELIGION   AND   LUST. 

several  pages  to  the  snake,  and  the  reason 
for  its  appearance  in  the  religion  of  primi- 
tive peoples.  He  ascribes  to  savages  a  psy- 
chical acuteness  that  I  am  by  no  means  will- 
ing to  allow  them,  inasmuch  as  he  makes 
them  give  a  psychical  causation  for  their 
adoption  of  the  serpent  as  a  deity,  such  as 
no  ignorant  and  uncultivated  savage  could 
have  possibly  evolved.  I  am  inclined  to  be- 
lieve that,  like  all  great  students  and  think- 
ers, Mr.  Spencer  has  a  hobby,  and  that  this 
hobby  is  animism  or  ancestor-worship. 
When  he  gives  out,  as  a  reason  for  the 
snake's  almost  universal  appearance  in  the 
religions  of  primitive  peoples,  that  the  lat- 
ter consider  it  an  animal  which  has  as- 
sumed the  returning  ghost,  double,  or 
soul  of  an  ancestor,48  I  think  that  he  is  very 
much  in  error.  There  are  very  few  primi- 
tive folk,  comparatively  speaking,  who  be- 
lieve in  metempsychosis.  In  all  probabil- 


(48)   Spencer:    Principles  of  Sociology,  vol.  i,  p. 
798. 


RELIGION  AND  LUST.  55 

ity,  when  a  race,  like  the  ancient  Egyptians, 
for  instance,  had  reached  a  high  degree  of 
civilization,  they  idealized  many  of  their 
religious  beliefs  and  customs;  hence,  the 
serpent  probably  lost  its  initial  and  simple 
symbolical  meaning,  and  stood  for  some- 
thing higher  and  more  ethical  during  the 
reign  of  the  great  Pharoahs,  and  the  Golden 
Age  of  the  Greeks  and  Latins.  I  am  posi- 
tive, however,  that  the  snake's  original  sig- 
nificance was  wholly  phallic  in  character, 
and  that  its  adoption  as  a  symbol  was  simple 
and  material,  as  I  explain  elsewhere  in  this 
essay.* 

I  am  forced  to  this  conclusion  by  its 
presence  among  phallic  symbols  in  almost 
every  race  that  practiced  or  practices  a  wor- 
ship of  the  generative  principles.  The  Pu- 
eblo Indians,  whom  I  have  mentioned  else- 
where in  this  treatise,  regard  the  snake 


(*)  The  appearance  of  the  erect  male  organ  of  gen- 
eration is  quite  sufficient  to  explain  why  the  snake 
should  be  chosen  as"  a  symbol  in  phallic  rites. 


56  RELIGION   AND   LUST. 

symbol  with  reverence;  the  Moqui  Indians 
have  their  sacred  snake  dance,  in  which 
they  worship  the  reptiles,  handling  the 
most  vicious  and  poisonous  rattlesnakes 
with  seeming  impunity;  the  Apaches  hold 
that  every  rattlesnake  is  an  emissary  of  the 
devil;49  "the  Piutes  of  Nevada  have  a  de- 
mon deity  in  the  form  of  a  serpent  still  sup- 
posed to  exist  in  the  waters  of  Pyramid 
Lake;"50  on  the  wall  of  an  ancient  Aztec 
ruin  at  Palenque  there  is  a  tablet,  on  which 
there  is  a  cross  standing  on  the  head  of  a 
serpent,  and  surmounted  by  a  bird.  "The 
cross  is  the  symbol  of  the  four  winds;  the 
bird  and  serpent  the  rebus  of  the  rain-god, 
their  ruler."51  The  Quiche  god,  Hurakan, 
was  called  the  "Strong  Serpent,"  and  the 
sign  of  Tlaloc,  the  Aztec  rain-god,  was  a 
golden  snake.*  All  of  these  tribes  are  or 

(49)  Bancroft:  Native  Races,  etc.,  p.  135. 

(50)  Ibid. 

(51)  Bancroft  (Brinton) :    Native  Races,  etc.,  p. 

135. 

(*)   In  the  celebrated  calendar  stone  of  the  Az- 


RELIGION  AND  LUST.  57 

were  worshipers  of  the  generative  princi- 
ples, though,  in  most  of  them,  phallic  wor- 
ship has  or  had  lost  much  of  its  original 
significance.52  In  Yucatan  and  elsewhere 
in  South  and  Central  America,  notably 
among  the  ruins  of  Chichen  Itza,  the  ser- 
pent symbol  is  frequently  in  evidence.53 
The  Indians  of  the  Tocantins  in  Brazil,  as 
well  as  the  Muras,  Mundurucus  and  Cuca- 
mas,  are  mixed  nature  and  devil  worship- 
ers ;*  as  a  sequence,  certain  phallic  rites  are 
to  be  observed  in  their  religious  ceremonies. 

Many  of  the  native  tribes  of  North 
America  perform  phallic  rites  at  puberty. 
James  Owen  Dorsey,  who  has  made  a  study 
of  the  Siouan  cults,  writes  as  follows: 

"Every  male  Dakota  sixteen  years  old 


tecs,  there  have  been  found  certain  hieroglyphics  point- 
ing to  sun  worship,  coincidently,  to  phallicism. 

(52)  Ibid.,  p.  134. 

(53)  Stephens:  Yucatan. 

(*)   Consult   Frantz   Keller:     The  Amazon   and 
Madeira  Rivers. 


58  RELIGION   AND   LUST. 

and  upward  is  a  soldier,  and  is  formally  and 
mysteriously  enlisted  into  the  service  of  the 
war  prophet.  From  him  he  receives  the 
implements  of  war,  carefully  constructed 
after  models  furnished  from  the  armory  of 
the  gods,  painted  after  a  divine  prescrip- 
tion, and  charged  with  a  missive  virtue — 
the  tonwan — of  the  divinities.  To  obtain 
these  necessary  articles  the  proud  applicant 
is  required  for  a  time  to  abuse  himself  and 
serve  him,  while  he  goes  through  a  series  of 
painful  and  exhausting  performances, 
which  are  necessary  on  his  part  to  enlist 
favorable  notice  of  the  gods.  These  per- 
formances consist  chiefly  of  vapor  baths, 
fastings,  chants,  prayers,  and  nightly  vigils. 
The  spear  and  the  tomahawk  being  pre- 
pared and  consecrated,  the  person  who  is 
to  receive  them  approaches  the  wakan  man 
(priest),  and  presents  a  pipe  to  him.  He 
asks  a  favor,  in  substance  as  follows:  'Pity 
thou  me,  poor  and  helpless,  a  'woman,  and 
confer  on  me  the  ability  to  perform  manly 


RELIGION  AND   LUST.  59 

deeds.' m*  According  to  Miss  Fletcher, 
when  an  Oglala  girl  arrives  at  puberty,  a 
great  feast  is  prepared,  and  favored  guests 
invited  thereto.  "A  prominent  feature  in 
the  feast  is  the  feeding  of  these  privileged 
persons  and  the  girl  in  whose  honor  the 
feast  is  given,  with  choke  cherries,  as  the 
choicest  rarity  to  be  had  in  the  winter. 
.  .  .  In  the  ceremony,  a  few  of  the 
cherries  are  taken  in  a  spoon  and  held  over 
the  sacred  smoke  and  then  fed  to  the  girl."" 
This  is  considered  one  of  the  most  sacred  of 
their  feasts. 

While  discussing  the  phallic  observ- 
ances of  the  North  American  races,  I  will 
introduce  the  subject  of  tattooing,  though  it 
properly  belongs  elsewhere  in  this  treatise. 

At  puberty,  the  Hudson  Bay  Eskimos 
invariably  tattoo  their  boys  and  girls.  Lu- 
cien  M.  Turner  writing  of  the  latter,  says: 

(54)  Dorsey:    Siouan  Cults,  An.  Rep.  Bur.  Eth., 
1889-90,  p.  444- 

(55)  Fletcher:   Peabody  Museum  Report,  vol.  in, 
p.  260. 


60  RELIGION  AND   LUST. 

"When  a  girl  arrives  at  puberty  she  is 
taken  to  a  secluded  locality  by  some  old 
woman  versed  in  the  art  of  tattooing,  and 
stripped  of  her  clothing.  A  small  quantity 
of  half-charred  lamp  wick  of  moss  is  mixed 
with  oil  from  the  lamp.  A  needle  is  used 
to  prick  the  skin,  and  the  pasty  substance  is 
smeared  over  the  wound.  The  blood  mixes 
with  it,  and  in  a  few  days  a  dark-bluish  spot 
is  left.  The  operation  continues  four  days. 
When  the  girl  returns  to  the  tent  it  is  known 
that  she  has  begun  to  menstruate."58  Both 
Eastern  and  Western  Inoits  celebrate  pu- 
berty with  certain  rites.  It  is  rather  diffi- 
cult, however,  to  get  them  to  say  much 
about  this  matter,  so  I  will  not  present  the 
evidence,  meager  as  it  is,  which  has  been 
gleaned  from  the  works  of  various  explor- 
ers. One  can  readily  see  that  much  of  it  is 
conjecture,  therefore  of  little  scientific 
value. 

(56) Turner:  An.  Rep.  Bur.  Eth.,  1889-90,  p.  208. 


RELIGION  AND  LUST.  61 

Not  far  from  the  Place  of  Gold,  the 
magnificent  temple  in  which  the  ancient  Pe- 
ruvians worshiped  the  Life  Giver,  was  an- 
other great  edifice,  styled  the  "House  of  the 
Virgins  of  the  Sun."  This  was  the  domicile 
of  the  pallacides  or  hetarae  of  the  Chief 
Priest,  the  Inca.  "No  one  but  the  Inca  and 
the  Coya,  or  queen,  might  enter  the  conse- 
crated precincts.  .  .  .  Woe  to  the  un- 
happy maiden  who  was  detected  in  an  in- 
trigue! By  the  stern  laws  of  the  Incas  she 
was  buried  alive,  her  lover  strangled,  and 
the  town  or  village  to  which  he  belonged 
was  razed  to  the  ground  and  sowed  with 
stones  as  if  to  efface  every  memorial  of  his 
existence.  One  is  astonished  to  find  so  close 
a  resemblance  between  the  institutions  of 
the  American  Indian,  the  ancient  Roman, 
and  the  modern  Catholic.  Chastity  and 
purity  of  life  are  virtues  in  woman  that 
would  seem  to  be  of  equal  estimation  with 
the  barbarian  and  with  the  civilized — yet 
the  ultimate  destination  of  the  inmates  of 


62  RELIGION  AND  LUST. 

these  religious  houses  (there  were  hun- 
hundreds  of  them),  was  materially  differ- 
ent. .  .  .  Though  Virgins  of  the  Sun, 
they  were  the  brides  of  the  Inca."57  The 
monarch  had  thousands  of  these  hetara3  in 
his  various  palaces.  When  he  wished  to 
lessen  the  number  in  his  seraglios,  he  sent 
some  of  them  to  their  own  homes,  where 
they  lived  ever  after  respected  and  revered 
as  holy  beings.58  The  religion  of  the  Peru- 
vians had  reached  a  high  degree  of  develop- 
ment, and  many  of  the  crudities  of  simple 
phallic  worship  had  either  been  entirely 
abandoned  or  so  idealized  that  they  had 
been  lost  in  the  mists  of  ritual  and  cere^ 
mony.  For  "the  ritual  of  the  Incas  in- 
volved a  routine  of  observances  as  complex 
and  elaborate  as  ever  distinguished  that  of 
any  nation,  whether  pagan  or  Christian."59 


(57)  Prescott:    Conquest  of  Peru,  vol.  i,  p.  no 
et  seq. 

(58)  Ibid.,  p.  112. 

(59)  Ibid.,  p.  103. 


RELIGION  AND  LUST.  63 

Notwithstanding  the  fact  that  the  de- 
scendants of  the  Incas  have  been  under  the 
guardianship  of  the  priests  of  the  Catholic 
church  for  hundreds  of  years,  a  close,  care- 
ful, painstaking,  and  accurate  observer  in- 
forms me  that  he  has  repeatedly  noticed 
unmistakable  phallic  rites  interwoven  with 
their  Christian  ceremonials  and  beliefs. 
The  same  can  be  said  of  a  kindred  race  and 
a  kindred  religion.  Biart,  writing  of  the 
descendants  of  the  Aztecs,  says :  "In  grot- 
toes unexpectedly  discovered,  I  have 
frequently  found  myself  in  the  presence  of 
Mictlanteuctli,  at  the  foot  of  which  a  recent 
offering  of  food  had  been  placed."60  How 
exceedingly  basic  and  fundamental  the 
worship  of  the  generative  principle  must 
be  in  Psychos  itself,  is  indicated  by  these 
facts ! 

In  the  very  beginnings  of  history  we 
find  that  many  races  of  people  held  the  wor- 

(60)   Biart:    The  Aztecs,  p.  139. 


64  RELIGION   AND   LUST. 

ship  of  the  generative  principle  in  high 
honor.  Not  only  has  the  knowledge  of  this 
fact  come  to  us  through  the  sculptured 
monuments  of  the  Egyptians  and  the  tab- 
lets, cylinders,  etc.,  of  the  Chaldeans,  but  it 
has  also  been  set  before  us  by  ancient  histor- 
ians. Speaking  of  the  Chaldeans  Herodo- 
tus (1,199)*  says,  "Every  woman  born  in 
the  country  must  enter  once  during  her  life- 
time the  inclosure  of  the  temple  of  Aphro- 
dite, must  there  sit  down  and  unite  herself 
to  a  stranger.  Many  who  are  wealthy  are 
too  proud  to  mix  with  the  rest,  and  repair 
thither  in  closed  chariots,  followed  by  a 
considerable  train  of  slaves.  The  greater 
number  seat  themselves  on  the  sacred  pave- 
ment, with  a  cord  twisted  about  their  hea'ds 
— and  there  is  always  a  crowd  there,  com- 
ing and  going;  the  women  being  divided  by 
ropes  into  long  lanes,  down  which  strangers 
pass  to  make  their  choice.  A  woman  who 

(*)    Herodotus:  Clio;  See  also  Gary's  translation 
of  Herodotus,  page  86  et  seq. 


RELIGION   AND  LUST.  65 

has  once  taken  her  place  here  cannot  return 
home  until  a  stranger  has  thrown  into  her 
lap  a  silver  coin,  and  has  led  her  away  with 
him  beyond  the  limits  of  the  sacred  inclos- 
ure.  As  he  throws  the  money  he  pro- 
nounces these  words:  'May  the  goddess 
Mylitta  make  thee  happy!'  Now  among 
the  Assyrians,  Aphrodite"  (the  goddess  of 
love,  desire]  "is  called  Mylitta.  The 
woman  follows  the  first  man  who  throws 
her  the  money,  and  repels  no  one.  When 
once  she  has  accompanied  him,  and  has 
thereby  satisfied  the  goddess,  she  returns  to 
her  home,  and  from  thenceforth,  however 
large  the  sum  offered  to  her,  she  will  yield 
to  no  one."  Maspero  declares  that  "this 
custom  still  existed  in  the  fifth  century  be- 
fore our  era,  and  the  Greeks  who  visited 
Babylon  about  that  time  found  it  still  in 
force."61 

He  also  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that 

(61)   Maspero  (Sayce):    The  Dawn  of  Civiliza- 
tion, p.  640. 


66  RELIGION   AND   LUST. 

"we  meet  with  a  direct  allusion  to  this  same 
custom  in  the  Bible,  in  the  Book  of  Baruch : 
The  women,  also,  with  cords  about  them, 
sitting  in  the  ways,  burn  bran  for  perfume; 
but  if  any  of  them,  drawn  by  some  that  pass- 
eth  by,  lie  with  him,  she  reproacheth  her 
fellow,  that  she  was  not  worthy  of  herself, 
nor  her  cord  broken.  Ch.  VI,  verse  43." 

Phallic  rites  and  observances  entered 
very  largely  into  the  religion  of  the  Assyr- 
ians, and  can  be  traced  back,  in  some  form 
or  other,  even  to  the  religion  of  the  ancient 
Sumerians,  the  root-stock  from  which  the 
Chaldeans  had  their  origin. 

In  the  third  chapter  of  Hebrew  history 
according  to  Moses  (Genesis  III),  we  have 
an  unmistakable  allusion  to  phallic  worship 
in  the  use  of  the  serpent  in  the  myth  of 
man's  temptation  and  fall.  The  serpent 
was  an  almost  universal  symbol  of  priapic 
adoration  throughout  Egypt  and  Assyria; 
it  achieved  this  distinction,  in  all  probabil- 
ity, from  its  resemblance  to  the  instrumen- 


RELIGION  AND   LUST.  67 

turn  masculinum  generationis.*  In  a  beau- 
tiful bronze  plaque,  representing  Nergal, 
the  Chaldean  god  of  Hades,  the  glans  penis 
of  the  god  is  distinctly  the  head  of  the  snake. 
A  splendid  drawing  of  this  plaque  by  Fau- 
cher-Gudin  is  given  in  Maspero's  Dawn  of 
Civilization.™  It  may  be  stated  here  that 
the  uraeus,  or  asp,  which  was  so  promi- 
nently in  evidence  as  one  of  the  principle 
signs  of  Egyptian  royalty,  was  also  the  sym- 
bol of  the  life-giving  principle  of  Ra,  the 
sun-god. 

Abraham,  in  all  probability,  instituted 
the  rite  of  circumcision  in  remembrance  of 


(*)  The  author  is  fully  aware  of  the  fact  that 
writers  on  phallic  worship  ascribe  other  reasons  for  the 
adoption  of  the  snake  as  one  of  the  chief  symbols  of  the 
worship  of  the  generative  principle.  He  believes,  how- 
ever, that  the  primitive  originators  of  this  cult  were, 
psychically,  too  immature  to  evolve  any  other  than  sim- 
ple and  objective  ideas  in  regard  to  this  subject;  hence 
he  considers  the  above  as  the  true  origin  of  this  sym- 
bol. Furthermore,  this  belief  is  strengthened  by  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  snake  in  the  myths  and  folklore  tales  of 
race-preservation  in  all  peoples  where  the  serpent  was  a 
familiar  object. 

(62)    Op.  «'/.,  p.  691. 


68  RELIGION   AND   LUST. 

the  Chaldean  genital  worship.*  This  sex- 
ual fetichism  was  eminently  religious  in 
character  from  its  very  inception  among 
the  ancient  Hebrews;  yet  Westermarck,  in 
his  History  of  Human  Marriage,  considers 
this  custom  as  being  of  ornamental  origin.63 
Now,  it  is  known  beyond  question  of  doubt 
that  the  Hebrews  and  Abyssinians,  who 
practiced  this  rite,  covered  their  nakedness, 
hence,  it  is  folly  to  suppose  that  they  orna- 
mented a  portion  of  their  bodies  which  al- 
ways remained  carefully  hidden.  More- 
over, since  it  has  been  in  use  from  very 
ancient  times  "among  most  of  the  tribes 
inhabiting  the  African  West  Coast,  among 
all  the  Mohammedan  peoples,  among  the 
Kaffirs,  among  nearly  all  the  peoples  of 


(*)  Abraham  was  a  Chaldean,  and,  in  Instituting 
circumcision,  was  undoubtedly  influenced  by  the  reli- 
gious beliefs  of  his  people.  Circumcision,  however,  was, 
with  him,  a  new  and  special  phallic  rite,  and  one  not  in 
vogue  among  the  Chaldeans.  Vid.  Genesis,  18:10. 

(63)  Westermarck:  History  of  Human  Marriage, 
p.  2O2  et  seq. 


RELIGION  AND  LUST.  69 

Eastern  Africa,  among  the  Christian  Abys- 
sinians,  Bogos,  and  Copts,  throughout  all 
the  various  tribes  inhabiting  Madagascar, 
and,  in  the  heart  of  the  Black  Continent, 
among  the  Monbuttu  and  Akka;  and  since 
it  is  practiced  very  commonly  in  Australia, 
in  many  islands  of  Melanesia,  in  Polynesia, 
universally,  in  some  parts  of  America,  in 
Yucatan,  on  the  Orinoco,  and  among  cer- 
tain tribes  in  Rio  Branco  in  Brazil;"64  and 
since  most  of  these  people  wholly  or  par- 
tially hide  their  nakedness,  it  cannot,  neces- 
sarily, have  had  its  origin  in  the  desire  for 
ornamentation.  Again,  since  the  rite  of  cir- 
cumcision among  these  peoples  always 
takes  place  at  puberty,  when  vita  sexualis 
begins,  and  is  always  accompanied  by  other 
rites  and  ceremonies  of  deeply  religious  sig- 
nificance, it  must  be  a  religious  observance 
and  phallic  in  its  nature.  Girls,  also,  at 

(64)  Westermarck :  History  of  Human  Marriage, 
p.  2OI  et  seq.  See,  also,  Wallace:  Travels  on  the  Ama- 
zon, p.  117  et  seq. 


70  RELIGION  AND  LUST. 

puberty,  among  many  tribes  of  Africa, 
among  certain  races  of  the  Malayan  Archi- 
pelago and  South  America  have  an  opera- 
tion performed  upon  them.  "Sunt  autem 
gentes,  quarum  contrarius  mos  est,  ut 
clitoris  et  labia  minora  non  exsecentur,  ver- 
um  extendantur,  et  saepe  longissime  ex- 
tendantur"™  Surely  such  a  peculiar  and 
uncalled-for  performance  has  a  deeper  sig- 
nificance than  mere  ornamentation,  and 
does  not  warrant  the  expression  "atque  ista 
etiam  deformatio  insigne  pulchritudinis  ex- 
istimatur" 

Tattooing,  among  certain  races,  is  a 
phallic  rite,  and  in  the  Tahitians  the  priapic 
origin  of  this  procedure  has  been  preserved 
in  an  interesting  myth.  Hinaereeremonoi 
was  the  daughter  of  the  god  and  goddess 
Taaroa  and  Apouvaru.  "As  she  grew  up, 
in  order  to  preserve  her  chasity,  she  was 
made  pahio,  or  kept  in  a  kind  of  inclosure, 

(65)  Westermarck:   op.  cit.  ante,  p.  106. 


RELIGION   AND   LUST.  71 

and  constantly  attended  by  her  mother.  In- 
tent on  her  seduction,  her  brothers  invented 
tattooing,  and  marked  each  other  with  the 
figure  called  Taomaro.  Thus  ornamented, 
they  appeared  before  their  sister,  who  ad- 
mired the  figures,  and,  in  order  to  be  tat- 
tooed herself,  eluding  the  care  of  her 
mother,  broke  the  inclosure  that  had  been 
erected  for  her  preservation,  was  tattooed, 
and  became,  also,  the  victim  to  the  designs 
of  her  brothers.  Tattooing  thus  originated' 
among  the  gods,  and  was  first  practiced  by 
the  children  of  Taaroa,  their  principle 
deity.  In  imitation  of  their  example,  and 
for  the  accomplishment  of  the  same  pur- 
poses it  was  practiced  among  men"*™ 
With  very  few  exceptions,  primitive 


(*)  After  the  ceremony  of  tattooing  had  been  per- 
formed, the  candidates  were  admitted  to  a  religious  so- 
ciety called  Areois,  which  had  for  its  object  an  "unre- 
strained and  public  abandonment  to  amorous  pleas- 
ures." Letourneau:  The  Evolution  of  Marriage,  p.  61. 

(66)  Ellis:  Polynesian  Researches,  vol.  i,  p.  262; 
quoted,  also,  by  Westermarck,  op.  cit.  ante.,  p.  179. 


72  RELIGION   AND   LUST. 

peoples,  wherever  found,  have  given  or  still 
give  unmistakable  evidence  of  a  knowledge 
of  phallic  worship  in  some  form  or  other. 
Many  of  them  still  practice  it,  generally 
combined  with  the  religion  from  which  it 
was  evolved,  i.  e.,  sun  worship.  The  Ainu 
of  Japan  is  a  notable  example  of  a  race 
whose  religion  shows  the  presence  of  the 
elements  of  both  worships.  The  religion  of 
this  remarkable  people,  notwithstanding 
the  fact  that  it  has  become  decidedly  ethical 
(they  having  arrived  at  a  knowledge  of  the 
good  and  evil  principles),  shows  its  sun 
birth.*  Until  very  recently  the  couvade  ex- 
isted in  full  force  and  vigor.  "As  soon  as  a 
child  was  born,  the  father  had  to  consider 
himself  very  ill,  and  had,  therefore,  to  stay 
at  home,  wrapped  up,  by  the  fire.  But  the 
wife,  poor  creature!  had  to  stir  about  as 
much  and  as  quickly  as  possible.  The  idea 


(*)  Herodotus  gives  an  interesting  instance  of  the 
evolution  of  phallic  worship  from  nature  worship.  See 
Clio,  131. 


RELIGION   AND   LUST.  73 

seems  to  have  been  that  life  was  passing 
from  the  father  into  his  child.'161 

Among  Slavonic  races  in  early  times, 
the  worship  of  the  generative  principle  was 
almost  universal.  This  continued,  in  a 
measure,  even  after  the  establishment  of 
Christianity,  and  we  find  phallic  rites  mas- 
querading in  the  garb  of  Christian  observ- 
ances as  late  as  the  sixteenth  century  in 
parts  of  Russia  and  Hungary.  Wester- 
marck,  in  his  chapter  on  the  human  rut 
season  in  primitive  times,  says:  "Writers 
of  the  sixteenth  century  speak  of  the  exist- 
ence of  certain  festivals  in  Russia,  at  which 
great  license  prevailed.  According  to 
Pamphil,  these  annual  gatherings  took 
place,  as  a  rule,  at  the  end  of  June,  the  day 
before  the  festival  of  St.  John  the  Baptist, 
which  in  pagan  times  was  that  of  a  divinity 
known  by  the  name  of  Jarilo,  correspond- 

(67)  Batchelor:     The  Ainu  of  Japan,  p.  44. 


74  RELIGION  AND  LUST. 

ing  to  the  Priapus  of  the  Greeks."68  If  my 
memory  serves  me  correctly,  Wappaus  says 
that  a  like  festival  was  in  existence  among 
the  Hungarians  two  hundred  years  ago.69 
To  this  day  certain  religious  sects  of  Russia 
and  Hungary  are  in  the  habit  of  holding 
orgies  at  which  all  the  ceremonies  of  the  an- 
cient Liberalia,  Floralia,  and  Saturnalia 
are  duplicated.  These  devotees  claim  that, 
when  they  have  reached  the  acme  of  reli- 
gious enthusiasm,  the  spirit  of  God  directs 
them,  hence  their  licentious  and  lustful  acts 
cannot  be  immoral. 

When  Great  Britain  was  invaded  and 
conquered  by  northern  savages,  the  latter, 
unquestionably,  introduced  their  own  reli- 
gious beliefs,  which  were  largely  phallic  in 
character.  The  Teutonic  god  Frea  was  the 
same  as  the  Latin  Priapus;  while  Friga, 
from  whom  our  Friday  gets  its  name,  be- 

(68)  Westermarck:  The  History  of  Human  Mar- 
riage, p.  30. 

(69)  Wappaus:     Allgem.    Bevoelkerungsstatistik. 


RELIGION  AND   LUST.  75 

cause  this  day  was  sacred  to  her,  was  the 
Teutonic  Venus.  Frea  is  called  Freyr  in 
old  Norse,  and  in  old  German,  Fro. 

Among  the  Swedes  he  was  worshiped 
under  the  name  of  Fricco,  and  a  statue  of 
him  at  Upsala  represented  him  in  the  char- 
acteristic attitude  of  the  god  of  procreation. 
"Tertius  est  Fricco,  pacem  voluptatemque 
largiens  mortalibus,  cujus  etiam  simulach- 
rum  fingunt  ingenti  priapo"70  From  this 
god  a  vulgar  word  for  copulation  had  its 
origin.  This  word  is  in  use  to-day  among 
the  descendants  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  thus 
proving  that  the  worship  of  the  generative 
principle  was  in  vogue  among  our  own  im- 
mediate ancestors. 

Statuettes  of  Priapus,  bronzes  represent- 
ing the  sexual  organs,  and  pottery  covered 
with  phallic  scenes  have  been  found  all  over 
England.  These  relics  are  remembrances  of 


(70)  Bremens:  De  Situ  Daniae,  p.  23;  quoted, 
also,  by  the  author  of  The  Worship  of  the  Generative 
Powers,  p.  126. 


76  RELIGION  AND  LUST. 

the  Roman  occupation  when  the  worship 
of  Priapus  prevailed.  In  the  parish  of 
Adel,  Yorkshire,  was  found  an  altar  erected 
to  Priapus,  who  seems  to  be  called  in  this 
instance  Mentula.  At  this  place  were  found 
many  other  priapic  relics,  such  as  lamps, 
bracelets,  amulets,  etc.,  etc.71  Several  im- 
ages of  the  triple  phallus,  as  well  as  the 
single  phallus,  have  been  brought  to  light 
in  London;  also  phallic  lamps,  bracelets, 
etc. 

All  over  England  the  Anglo-Saxon 
Frea,  or  Friga,  has  left  remembrances  of 
his  or  her  worship  in  place-names.  Friday- 
thorpe  in  Yorkshire,  and  Friston  (Frea's 
stone),  which  occurs  in  several  parts  of 
England,  are  examples.  "We  seem  justified 
in  supposing  that  this  and  other  names  com- 
mencing with  the  syllable  Fri  or  Fry,  are 
so  many  monuments  of  the  existence  of 


(71)    The  Worship  of  the  Generative  Powers,  p. 
124. 


RELIGION   AND   LUST.  77 

phallic  worship  among  our  Anglo-Saxon 
forefathers."72  There  are  other  words  in 
the  English  language  which  point  directly 
to  this  ancient  religion;  for  instance,  fasci- 
nate and  fascination.  These  words  were  de- 
rived directly  from  the  Latin  word  fasci- 
num,  which  was  one  of  the  names  of  the 
male  organ  of  generation.  The  fascinum 
was  worn  suspended  from  the  necks  of 
women,  and  was  supposed  to  possess  magi- 
cal powers;  hence,  to  fascinate.  Horace 
makes  use  of  the  word  in  Priapeia : 

"Placet,  Priape?  Qui  sunt  arboris  coma 
Sotes,  sacrum  revincte  pampino  caput, 
Ruber  sedere  cum  rubente  fascino"1* 

That  the  worship  of  the  fascinum  was 
in  vogue  during  the  eighth  century*  in 

(72)  The  Worship  of  the  Generative  Powers,  p. 
127. 

(73)  Horace:  Priap.  Carm.,  Ixxxiv. 

(*)  A  well  informed  Jesuit  priest  once  told  me 
that  several  laws  had  been  made  about  this  time  forbid- 
ding the  worship  of  the  female  sexual  organ,  under  the 
name  of  abricot  or  apricot.  Rabelais  used  the  word  abri- 
cot  fendu  when  speaking  of  the  female  genital  organs. 


78  RELIGION  AND  LUST. 

Italy  and  in  other  countries  under  the  reli- 
gious jurisdiction  of  the  Pope,  the  follow- 
ing from  the  Indicia  Sacerdotalia  Crimini- 
bus,  clearly  indicates :  "If  any  one  has  per- 
formed incantation  to  the  fascinum,  or  any 
incantation  whatever,  except  one  who 
chaunts  the  Creed  or  the  Lord's  Prayer,  let 
him  do  penance  on  bread  and  water  during 
three  Lents.'mt 


See  his  works.  Was  this  term  derived  from  the  Bibli- 
cal narrative  of  the  genesis  of  the  human  race  (the 
apple),  or  was  it  taken  from  the  phallic  symbol,  the 
pomegranate?  Did  Moses  get  it 
in  the  first  place  ?  I  think  he  did. 

(74)  Martene  and  Durand:  Veterum  Scriptorum 
Amplissima  Collectio,  torn,  vii,  p.  35.  Si  quis  praecan- 
taverit  ad  fascinum,  vel  qualescumque  praecantationes 
excepto  symbolum  sanctum  out  orationem  dominicam 
qui  cantat  et  cut  cantatur,  tres  quadrigesimas  in  pane 
et  aqua  poeniteat. 

(t)  As  has  been  pointed  out  elsewhere  in  this 
work,  ancient  peoples  were  essentially  symbolical  and 
materialistically  symbolical  at  that ;  they  were  very  apt 
to  typify  nature,  sexually,  by  some  object  or  objects 
which  bore  a  resemblance  real  or  fancied,  to  the  sexual 
organs.  The  red  halves  of  the  ripe  apricot  at  the  inser- 
tion of  the  stem,  look  very  much  like  the  external  gen- 
italia  of  the  human  female.  The  significance  and  im- 
portance of  the  pomegranate  in  the  mixed  religion  of  the 


RELIGION   AND   LUST.  79 

During  the  ninth  century  the  Council  of 
Chalons  promulgated  a  similar  law,  and  in 
the  twelfth  century  Buchardus  repeats  it, 
thus  showing  that  the  worship  of  the  gener- 
ative principle  was  continuous  throughout 
that  time."  That  the  worship  of  the  fasci- 
num  was  in  vogue  as  late  as  1247  is  proven 
by  the  statutes  of  the  Synod  of  Mans,  which 
declare  that  he  who  worships  the  fascinum 
shall  be  seriously  dealt  with.76 

In  Scotland,  as  late  as  1268,  according 
to  the  Chronicles  of  Lanercroft,  the  people 
were  in  the  habit  of  rubbing  two  pieces  of 
wood  together  until  fire  was  produced.  At 

Ancient  Hebrews  are  well  brought  out  in  rules  laid 
down  for  the  ornamentations  and  embroidery  of  the 
robes  of  the  priests,  etc.,  etc.,  Vid.  Old  Testament. 

(75)  D.  Burchardi:    Decretorum  libri,  lib.  x,  c. 
49. 

Some  of  these  clerical  references  are  taken  from  the 
Worship  of  Priapus,  but,  since  this  work  is  exceedingly 
rare  and  costly,  and  is  not  apt  to  come  under  the  notice 
of  the  general  reader,  I  have  thought  best  to  give  the 
original  authorities.) 

(76)  Martene  and  Durand:    Veterum  Scrlptorum 
Collect™  Amplissima,  torn,  vii,  col.  1377. 


80  RELIGION  AND  LUST. 

the  same  time  an  image  of  the  phallus  was 
elevated,  and  certain  prayers  were  said  to 
Priapus.  This  was  the  famous  "need  fire," 
and  was  obtained  in  this  way  in  order  that 
it  might  have  the  power  of  saving  the  cattle 
from  the  plague.  Need  fire  was  produced 
in  this  manner  in  the  Highlands  as  late  as 
1356,  at  which  time  a  cattle  plague  rav- 
aged the  country  side.  In  Inverkeithing,  a 
Catholic  priest  gathered  all  the  young  girls 
of  the  village  and  made  them  dance  around 
a  statue  of  Priapus.  He  himself  led  the 
dance,  carrying  a  large  wooden  image  of 
the  phallus,  and  excited  these  medieval  bac- 
chantes to  licentious  movements  and  actions 
by  his  own  actions  and  language. 

When  called  to  account  by  his  bishop, 
he  excused  his  action  by  stating  that  such 
performances  were  common  in  his  parish. 
These  phallic  observances  occurred  in  Eas- 
ter week,  March  29-April  15,  1282." 

(77)    The  Chronicles  of  Lanercroft. 


RELIGION  AND  LUST.  81 

In  Ireland,  the  female  sexual  organs 
seem  to  have  been  the  symbol  of  phallic 
worship  most  in  use.  In  the  arches  over 
the  doorways  of  churches,  a  female  figure, 
with  the  person  fully  exposed,  was  invaria- 
bly so  placed  that  the  external  organs  of 
generation  at  once  caught  the  eye.  These 
figures  were  called  Shela-na-gig,  which  in 
Irish  means  "Julian  the  giddy."  Some- 
times these  images  were  placed  on  the  walls 
and  used  as  caryatides.  From  this  symbol 
the  horseshoe's  power  to  ward  off  evil  and 
bring  good  luck  has  been  evolved.  The 
people  in  olden  times  were  in  the  habit  of 
painting,  or  sketching  with  charcoal,  draw- 
ings of  the  female  genitalia  over  the  doors 
of  their  houses  to  ward  off  bad  luck.  These 
drawings  were  necessarily  rude,  and  prob- 
ably resembled  a  horseshoe  more  than  they 
did  the  object  for  which  they  were  intended. 
In  course  of  time,  when  the  symbol  had  lost 
its  original  significance,  the  horseshoe  en- 
tirely took  the  place  of  the  phallic  image. 


82  RELIGION  AND  LUST. 

Herodotus  says  that  Sesostris,  king  of 
Egypt,  was  in  the  habit  of  erecting  pillars 
in  the  countries  conquered  by  his  armies,  on 
which  he  had  the  female  genitals  engraved 
in  order  to  show  his  contempt.78  I  think 
that  the  historian  misinterprets  the  meaning 
of  the  pillars;  the  Egyptians  were  phallic 
worshipers,  and  these  obelisks  were,  in  all 
probability,  altars  to  Priapus. 

The  beneficent  influence  of  this  particu- 
lar phallic  symbol  has  been  well  brought 
out  in  several  classical  stories.  When  Ceres 
was  wandering  over  the  world  in  her  search 
after  Proserpine,  she  came  to  the  house  of 
a  peasant  woman,  Baubo  by  name.  Baubo 
saw  that  the  goddess  was  heart-sick  and 
miserable,  so  she  offered  her  a  drink  of 
cyceon  (KVKZWV).  The  goddess  refused 
the  refreshing  mixture,  and  continued  her 
lamentations.  Fully  believing  in  the  virtue 
and  efficacy  of  the  symbol,  Baubo  lifted  her 

(78)   Herodotus:  Euterpe,  102. 


RELIGION  AND  LUST.  83 

robe  and  showed  Ceres  her  genitals.*  The 
goddess  burst  into  laughter  and  at  once 
drank  the  cyceon.79  The  same  superstition 
appears  in  a  celebrated  book  of  the  six- 
teenth century,  Le  Moyen  de  Parvenir. 
The  author  of  the  "Worship  of  the  Genera- 
tive Powers"  gives  the  following  instructive 
extract  from  this  work: 

Hermes.  On  nomme  ainsi  ceux  qui  n'ont 
point  vu  le  con  de  leur  femme  ou  de  leur 
garce.  Le  pauvre  valet  de  chez  nous  netoit 
done  pas  coquebin;  il  eut  beau  le  voir. 

Varro.    Quand? 

Hermes.  Attendez,  etant  en  fiangailles, 
il  vouloit  prendre  le  cas  de  sa  fiancee;  elle 
ne  le  vouloit  pas',  il  faisoit  le  maladet  et  elle 
lui  demandoit:  "Qu'y  a-t-il,  mon  ami?" 
"Helas,  ma  mie,  je  suis  si  malade,  que  je 
n'en  puts  plus;  je  mourrai  si  je  ne  vois  ton 
cas."  "Vraiment  voire?"  dit-elle.  "Helas! 


(*)   For  an  analogous  ceremony,  see   Herodotus, 
Euterpe,  60. 

(79)   Arnobius:    Adversus  Gentes,  lib.  v,  c.  5. 


84  RELIGION   AND   LUST. 

oui,  si  je  I'avois  vu,  je  guerirois."  Elle  ne 
lul  voulut  point  montrer;  a  la  fin,  Us  furent 
maries.  II  advint,  trois  ou  quatre  mois 
apres,  qu'  il  fut  fort  malade;  et  il  envoya  sa 
femme  au  medicin  pour  porter  de  son  eau. 
En  allant,  elle  s'avisa  de  ce  qu'il  lui  avoit 
dit  en  fianqailles.  Elle  retourna  vitement, 
et  se  vint  mettre  sur  le  lit;  puts,  levant  cotte 
et  chemise  lui  presenta  son  cela  en  belle  vue, 
et  lui  disoit:  "Jean,  re  garde  le  con,  et  te 
gueris."80 

Sir  William  Hamilton  writes  to  Rich- 
ard Payne  Knight  from  Naples  in  the  year 
1781,  as  follows: 

"Having  last  year  made  a  curious  dis- 
covery, that  in  a  province  of  this  kingdom, 
not  fifty  miles  from  its  capital,  a  sort  of 
devotion  is  still  paid  to  Priapus,  the  obscene 
divinity  of  the  ancients  (though  under  an- 
other denomination),  I  have  thought  it  a 
circumstance  worth  recording;  particularly 

(80)  The  Worship  of  the  Generative  Powers,  p. 
135- 


RELIGION   AND   LUST.  85 

as  it  offers  a  fresh  proof  of  the  similitude 
of  the  Popish  and  Pagan  religion,  so  well 
observed  by  Dr.  Middleton  in  his  cele- 
brated Letter  from  Rome;  therefore  I  mean 
to  deposit  the  authentic  proofs  of  this  asser- 
tion in  the  British  Museum  when  a  proper 
opportunity  shall  offer."  Sir  William  goes 
on  to  relate  how  he  found  many  phallic 
amulets,  charms,  etc.,  in  the  possession  of 
the  people,  and  then  describes  the  votive 
offerings  laid  upon  the  altar  at  a  feast  given 
in  honor  of  Saints  Cosmus  and  Damianus, 
in  a  church  called  by  their  names.  The  of- 
ferings were  waxen  images  of  the  phallus. 
"The  vows  are  chiefly  presented  by  the  fe- 
male sex,"  continues  he,  "and  they  are  sel- 
dom such  as  represent  legs,  arms,  etc.,  but 
most  commonly  the  male  parts  of  genera- 
tion. A  person  who  was  at  this  fete  in  the 
year  1780,  told  me  that  he  heard  a  woman 
say,  at  the  time  she  presented  a  vow,  'Santo 
Costmo  benedetto,  cost  lo  voglio.'1  " 

(81)   Knight:   The  Worship  of  Priapus,  pp.  3-6,  7. 


86  RELIGION   AND  LUST. 

This  church  was  in  Isernia,  a  little  vil- 
lage about  fifty  miles  from  Naples,  and 
away  from  the  direct  line  of  travel,  hence 
its  inhabitants  saw  little  of  the  world,  and 
therefore  kept  to  their  old  customs  longer 
than  their  more  favored  neighbors.  Thus 
it  happened  that,  even  in  the  latter  half  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  Priapus  had  his  vo- 
taries almost  within  the  shadow  of  the  Vat- 
ican! These  phallic  rites  were  finally  abol- 
ished by  episcopal  command. 

One  of  the  most  common  amulets  or 
charms  against  jettitura,  or  the  "evil  eye," 
the  bete  noire  of  every  Italian,  is  a  little 
coral  hand.  The  middle  finger  of  this  hand 
is  extended,  thus  representing  the  penis, 
while  the  other  fingers  are  closed  on  the 
palm,  thus  representing  the  testicles.  In  an- 
cient times,  when  a  man  extended  his  hand, 
closed  in  this  manner,  it  was  a  gesture  of 
insult  and  anger;  to-day  this  gesture  is  only 
made  in  derision  and  contempt.  The  hand 
closed  in  this  way,  or,  rather,  with  the 


RELIGION  AND  LUST.  87 

thumb  projecting  between  the  first  and  sec- 
ond fingers  (another  very  common  phallic 
symbol  or  sign),  was  called  a  "fig";  hence, 
the  old  expression  of  contempt  and  indiffer- 
ence, "a  fico  for  you,  sir,"  now  modernized 
into  "I  don't  care  a  fig."* 

France,  as  well  as  Italy,  had  her  phal- 
lic charms  and  her  phallic  saints.  Priapus 
was  a  god  to  the  ancients — to  the  people  of 
the  Middle  Ages  he  was  a  saint.  Accord- 
ing to  M.  Dulaure,  in  the  south  of  France, 
Provence,  Languedoc,  and  the  Lyonnais, 
he  was  worshiped  under  the  name  of  St. 
Foutin.  This  name  is  derived  from  that  of 
the  first  bishop  of  Lyons,  Fotinus,  to  whom 
the  people  had  transferred  (as  they  have 
done  to  many  other  sainted  individuals)  the 
distinguishing  characteristics  of  a  god;  in 

(*)  A  modification  of  this  is  seen  in  the  derisive 
gesture  of  the  street  Arab  who  closes  all  of  his  fingers, 
except  the  middle  one,  on  his  palm.  The  middle  finger 
he  holds  stiffly  erect  and  the  hand  is  then  extended  to- 
wards the  object  of  his  contempt.  This  gesture,  once 
performed  as  a  deeply  religious  rite,  has  now  become 
the  contemptuous  sign  of  a  boy  of  the  street! 


88  RELIGION  AND  LUST. 

this  instance,  Priapus.  At  Lyons  there  was 
an  immense  wooden  phallus,  and  the 
women  were  in  the  habit  of  scraping  this 
image,  and  then  steeping  the  wood-dust  in 
water,  which  they  drank  as  a  remedy 
against  barrenness.  Sometimes  they  gave 
it  to  the  men  in  order  to  stimulate  sexuality 
or  sensuality.  At  Varailles,  in  Provence, 
waxen  images  of  the  male  and  female  sex- 
ual organs  were  offered  to  St.  Foutin,  and, 
since  these  images  were  suspended  from 
the  ceiling  and  moved  by  every  vagrant 
current  of  air,  the  effect  was  sometimes 
very  astonishing.  "Temoin  Saint  Foutin 
de  Varailles  en  Provence,  auquel  sont  de- 
die  es  les  parties  honteuses  de  I'un  et  de 
I'  autre  sexe,  formees  en  cire;  le  plancher  de 
la  chapelle  en  est  fort  garni,  et,  quand  le 
vent  les  fait  entrebattre,  cela  debauche  un 
pen  les  devotions  a  I'honneur  de  ce  Saint.'9162 
This  worship  at  Varailles  was  identical 

(82)    L'Estoile:     Confession    de   Sancy,    pp.    383, 


RELIGION   AND  LUST.  89 

with  that  of  Isernia;  the  votive  offerings 
were  waxen  images  or  models  of  the  genital 
organs,  while  the  saints  differed  only  in 
name,  not  in  character.  At  Embrun  the 
worship  of  St.  Foutin  was  a  little  different. 
The  women  at  this  last  mentioned  place 
poured  wine  on  the  phallus;  this  wine  was 
collected  in  a  bucket,  and,  when  it  became 
sour,  it  was  used  as  a  medicine  for  barren- 
ness. 

When  Embrun  was  besieged  and  taken 
by  the  Protestants  in  1585,  this  phallus  was 
found  among  the  other  sacred  relics,  and 
its  head  "was  red  with  the  wine  which  had 
been  poured  upon  it."  8S  In  the  church  of 
St.  Eutropius,  at  Orange,  a  large  phallus 
covered  with  leather  was  seized  and  burnt 
by  the  Protestants  in  1562.  Dulaure  says 
that  the  sexual  organs  were  objects  of  wor- 
ship at  Porighy,  Viviers,  Vendre  in  the 
Bourbonnais,  Gives,  Auxerre,  Puy-en-Ve- 

(83)    The  Worship  of  Priapus,  p.  141. 


90  RELIGION   AND   LUST. 

lay,  and  at  hundreds  of  other  places.  Some 
of  these  phalli  were  recreated  as  fast  as 
they  were  worn  away  by  zealous  devotees. 
They  were  so  arranged  in  the  walls  of  the 
churches  that,  "as  the  phallic  end  in  front 
became  shortened  (by  scrapings),  a  blow 
from  a  mallet  from  behind  thrust  it  for- 
ward, so  that  it  was  restored  to  its  original 
length."84 

In  the  public  square  of  Batavia  there 
was  formerly  kept  a  bronze  cannon  which 
had  been  captured  from  the  natives.  The 
touch-hole  of  this  piece  of  ordnance  was 
made  in  the  shape  of  a  phallic  hand  or 
"fig,"  which  I  have  described  elsewhere. 
The  barren  Malay  women  were  in  the  habit 
of  seating  themselves  on  this  hand  in  order 
that  they  might  become  pregnant.*  An 

(84)  Ibid. 

(*)  According  to  Abel  de  Remusat  (Nouv.  Mel. 
Asiatiques,  p.  116),  the  custom  of  tchtn-than,  or  reli- 
gious defloration,  was  formerly  in  use  in  Cambodia  and 
Malabar.  This  custom  seems  to  be  analogous  to  the 
jus  primae  noctis,  as  practiced  by  many  tribes,  where 
the  woman,  on  her  bridal  night,  has  to  yield  herself  up 


RELIGION  AND  LUST.  91 

analogous  custom  was  prevalent  in  France 
and  elsewhere  in  Europe  during  the  Mid- 
dle Ages.  This  habit  led  to  sexual  abuses, 
and  was  finally  condemned  by  the  ecclesias- 
tical authorities.  Indeed,  the  Church  in- 
flicted severe  penances  on  the  women  who 
were  guilty  of  using  phalli :  "Mulier  qual- 
ique  molimine  aut  se  ipsam  aut  cum  altera 
fornicans  tres  annos  poeniteat,  unum  ex  his 
pane  et  aqua.  Cum  sanctimoniali  per  ma- 
chinam  fornicans,  annos  septem  poeniteat, 
duos  ex  his  in  pane  et  aqua."**  We  see  by 
this  that  nuns  were  more  severely  punished 
than  were  other  women. 


to  the  male  marriage  guests — jus  primae  noctis,  as 
thus  practiced,  must  not  be  confounded  with  the  seig- 
norial  right,  the  right  of  the  lord,  or  ruler.  The  for- 
mer right  is  regarded  in  the  light  of  a  quasi  religious 
observance,  while  the  latter  is  not.  The  former  was 
in  vogue  in  ancient  times  in  the  Balearic  Isles  and 
among  the  ancient  Peruvians;  recently  among  several 
aboriginal  tribes  of  India,  in  Burmah,  in  Cashmere,  in 
Madagascar,  in  Arabia,  and  in  New  Zealand.  Vid. 
Teulon:  Or'ig.  de  la  Famille,  p.  69. 

(85)   Martene    et    Durand:     Coll    Antiq.    Can. 
Paenit.,  iv,  52. 


92  RELIGION  AND  LUST. 

This  use  of  the  phallus  is  mentioned  in 
the  Bible,  where  it  is  bitterly  condemned  by 
one  of  the  prophets :  "Thou  hast  also  taken 
thy  fair  jewels  of  my  gold  and  of  my  silver, 
which  I  had  given  thee,  and  madest  to  thy- 
self images  of  men,  and  didst  commit 
whoredom  with  them."86  Finally,  it  was 
the  custom  of  the  young  girls  of  France  dur- 
ing the  Middle  Ages  (like  the  maidens  of 
certain  savage  races),  who  were  on  the  eve 
of  marriage,  to  offer  up  to  St.  Foutin  their 
last  maiden  robes.  From  the  evidence  here 
adduced,  we  see  that  phallic  worship  ex- 
isted in  some  parts  of  Europe  as  late  as  the 
latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and 
that  it  was  almost  universal  during  the  Mid 
die  Ages.  According  to  Becan,87  Gol- 
nitz,88  and  other  historians,  there  were  sev- 
eral other  phallic  saints  besides  St.  Foutin 

(86)  Ezekiel:  chap,  xiv,  v.  17. 

(87)  Becan:    Ongines  Antwerpianae,  lib.   i,   pp. 
26,  101. 

(88)  Golnitz:    Itinerarium    Belgico-Gallicum,   p. 
52. 


RELIGION  AND  LUST.  93 

who  were  worshiped  in  Belgium,  Spain, 
Germany  and  other  European  countries; 
but,  since  their  adoration  was  similar  to  that 
of  St.  Foutin,  I  do  not  think  it  necessary  to 
give  a  description  of  it  here.  It  has  been 
shown  conclusively  that  worship  of  the  gen- 
erative principle  was  in  vogue  among  the 
Latins,  the  Greeks,  the  ancient  Germans, 
the  Saxons,  the  Danes,  the  Gauls,  the  Iber- 
ians, the  Picts,  the  Celts  and  the  Britons.  It 
has  been  demonstrated,  also,  that  vestiges  of 
phallic  worship  existed  in  England, 
France,  Italy,  Spain  and  Germany  during 
the  Middle  Ages.  As  late  as  the  latter  part 
of  the  eighteenth  century  wax  images  of  the 
phallus  were  used  as  votive  offerings  in  the 
town  of  Isernia,  not  many  miles  from  Na- 
ples; the  beribboned  Maypole  of  our  May- 
day festival  is  but  the  flower  decked  phallus 
of  the  Roman  matrons;  charms  against 
jettitura,  "the  evil  eye,"  little  coral  hands 
with  the  middle  ringer  extended  (in  ancient 
days  one  of  the  most  common  symbols  of 


94  RELIGION  AND  LUST. 

Priapus)  can  still  be  purchased  in  the 
streets  of  Rome.*  "This  worship"  (that  of 
Priapus)  "which  was  but  part  of  that  of  the 
generative  powers,  appears  to  have  been  the 
most  ancient  of  the  superstitions  of  the  hu- 
man race,  and  has  prevailed  more  or  less 
among  all  known  peoples  before  the  intro- 
duction of  Christianity;  and,  singularly 
enough,  so  deeply  it  seems  to  have  been  im- 
planted in  human  nature  that  even  the  pro- 
mulgation of  the  gospel  did  not  abolish  it, 
for  it  continued  to  exist,  accepted  and  often 
encouraged  by  the  medieval  clergy."89 

So  very  ancient  was  the  inception  of  the 
worship  of  the  generative  principle  that  we 
have  some  reason  for  believing  that  even 


(*)  The  phallic  hand  in  some  form  or  other  is  fre- 
quently found  in  the  ruins  of  Herculaneum  and  Pom- 
peii. The  so-called  maison  d'  joie  found  in  one  of  the 
streets  of  Pompeii  is  considered  by  some  authorities  to 
have  been  a  minor  temple  to  Venus  where  priapic  rites 
were  celebrated.  The  stone  phallus  at  the  entrance  as 
well  as  the  errotic  frescoes  on  the  wall,  point  to  this  as 
being  true. 

(89)   Knight:  op.  cit.  ante,  p.  117. 


RELIGION   AND   LUST.  95 

the  cave-dwellers  practiced  this  cult.  It 
was  stated  in  the  Moniteur,  January,  1865, 
that  "in  the  province  of  Venice,  in  Italy,  ex- 
cavations in  a  bone-cave  have  brought  to 
light,  beneath  ten  feet  of  stalagmite,  bones 
of  animals,  mostly  post-tertiary,  of  the  usual 
description  found  in  such  places,  flint  im- 
plements, with  a  needle  of  bone  having  an 
eye  and  point,  and  a  plate  of  argillaceous 
compound,  on  which  was  scratched  a  rude 
drawing  of  the  phallus."90  Thus  we  see 
that,  possibly,  from  the  time  of  the  cave- 
dwellers  to  almost  the  beginning  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  phallic  worship  existed 
in  Southern  Europe!  From  the  Sagas,  folk- 
lore tales,  and  myths  of  the  Norse  we  have 
every  reason  for  believing  that  it  existed  for 
almost  as  great  a  length  of  time  in  Northern 
Europe.  That  in  Western  Europe,  before 
and  during  the  Middle  Ages,  it  flourished 


(90)    The    Worship    of    the    Generative   Powers, 
footnote  p.  1 17. 


96  RELIGION   AND   LUST. 

in  a  variety  of  forms,  we  have  unimpeach- 
able testimony. 

In  this  brief  outline  of  phallic  worship 
I  have  endeavored  to  show  that  the  worship 
of  the  generative  principle  has  been  univer- 
sal; that  it  is  still  practiced  by  primitive 
peoples,  and  that  vestiges  of  it  lingered 
among  certain  civilized  peoples  until,  com- 
paratively speaking,  a  recent  time.  In  or- 
der to  show  what  a  height  of  idealization 
and  abstraction  it  had  reached  at  a  time 
when  Greece  stood  at  the  head  of  the  civil- 
ized world,  I  will  close  this  part  of  my 
essay  with  the  following  quotation  from 
Knight's  strong,  erudite,  and  exhaustive 
treatise:  "The  ancient  theologists  .  . 
finding  that  they  could  conceive  no  idea  of 
infinity,  were  content  to  revere  the  Infinite 
Being  in  the  most  general  and  efficient  exer- 
tion of  his  power — attraction;  whose 
agency  is  perceptible  through  all  matter, 
and  to  which  all  motion  may,  perhaps,  be 
ultimately  traced.  His  agency  being  sup- 


RELIGION   AND  LUST.  97 

posed  to  extend  through  the  whole  material 
world,  and  to  produce  all  the  various  revo- 
lutions by  which  its  system  is  sustained,  his 
attributes  were,  of  course,  extremely  numer- 
ous and  varied.  These  were  expressed  by 
various  titles  and  epithets  in  the  mystic 
hymns  and  litanies,  which  the  artists  en- 
deavored to  represent  by  various  forms  and 
characters  of  men  and  animals.  The  great 
characteristic  attribute  was  represented  by 
the  organ  of  generation  in  that  state  of  ten- 
sion and  rigidity  which  is  necessary  to  the 
due  performance  of  its  functions.  Many 
small  images  of  this  kind  have  been  found 
among  the  ruins  of  Herculaneum  and  Pom- 
peii, attached  to  bracelets,  which  the  chaste 
and  pious  matrons  of  antiquity  wore  round 
their  necks  and  arms.  In  these  the  organ  of 
generation  appears  alone,  or  accompanied 
by  the  wings  of  incubation,  in  order  to  show 
that  the  wearer  devoted  herself  wholly  and 
solely  to  procreation,  the  great  end  for 
which  she  was  ordained.  So  expressive  a 


98  RELIGION  AND   LUST. 

symbol,  being  constantly  in  view,  must  keep 
her  attention  fixed  on  its  natural  object,  and 
continually  remind  her  of  the  gratitude  she 
owed  the  Creator  for  having  taken  her  into 
his  service,  made  her  partaker  of  his  most 
valuable  blessings,  and  employed  her  as  the 
passive  instrument  in  the  exertion  of  his 
most  beneficial  power.  The  female  organs 
of  generation  were  revered  as  symbols  of 
the  generative  power  of  nature  or  matter,  as 
the  male's  were  of  the  generative  powers  of 
God."91 


(91)  Knight:    The   Worship  of  Pnapus,  p.   27, 
et  seq. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  PSYCHICAL  CORRELATION  OF  RELIGIOUS 
EMOTION  AND  SEXUAL  DESIRE. 

That  there  exists  a  relationship  between 
the  cultivated  ethical  emotion,  religious 
feeling,  and  the  essentially  natural  physio- 
psychical  function,  sexual  desire  or  libido,  is 
a  fact  noticed  and  commented  on  by  many 
thinkers  and  writers.  The  literature  of  the 
subject  is,  however,  exceedingly  fragmen- 
tary and  disconnected,  no  author  (as  far  as 
I  have  been  able  to  determine)  having  de- 
voted as  much  as  one  thousand  words  to  the 
consideration  of  this  very  interesting  psy- 
chical phenomenon.  Hence,  my  data  have 
been  gathered  from  many  sources,  which 
are  as  diversified  as  they  are  numerous. 

Beyond  a  question  of  doubt,  man  be- 
comes religiously  enthused  most  frequently 
either  early  in  life,  when  pubescence  is,  or 
is  about  to  be,  established,  or  late  in  life, 
when  sexual  desire  has  become  either  en- 


100  RELIGION  AND  LUST. 

tirely  extinct  or  very  much  abated.  Young 
boys  and  girls  are  exceedingly  impression- 
able at,  or  just  before,  puberty,  and  are  apt 
to  embrace  religion  with  the  utmost  enthu- 
siasm. A  distinguished  evangelist  declares 
that  "men  and  women  seldom  or  never  enter 
into  the  kingdom  of  God  after  they  have 
arrived  at  maturity.  Out  of  a  thousand  con- 
verts, seven  hundred  are  converted  before 
they  are  twenty  years  old."92 

The  Roman  Catholic  church  is  keenly 
alive  to  these  facts,  therefore  requires  the 
rite  of  confirmation  to  be  administered,  if 
possible,  to  its  would-be  communicants  at, 
or  before,  the  age  of  puberty.* 

Of  all  the  insanities  of  the  pubescent 
state,  erotomania  and  religious  mania  are 
the  most  frequent  and  the  most  pronounced. 

(92)  B.  Fay  Mills,  Sermon  to  Young  Men  and 
Young  Women,  at  Owensboro,  Ky.,  May  20,  1894. 

(*)  This  knowledge  is  not  confined  to  the  Catholic 
church  alone;  in  all  denominations  the  pubescent  hu- 
man being  is  considered  most  susceptible  to  religious  in- 
fluences. The  cause  or  raison  d  'etre  of  this  suscepti- 
bility is,  by  no  means,  generally  recognized. 


RELIGION   AND  LUST.  101 

Sometimes  they  go  hand  in  hand,  the  most 
inordinate  sensuality  being  coupled  with 
abnormal  religious  zeal.  A  young  woman 
of  my  acquaintance,  whose  conduct  has 
given  rise  to  much  scandal,  is,  at  times,  a  re- 
incarnate Messalina,  while  at  other  times 
she  is  the  very  embodiment  of  ethical  and 
religious  purity.  Another  young  girl,  in 
whom  vita  sexualis  was  about  to  be  estab- 
lished, became  religiously  insane  and  had 
delusions  in  which  she  declared  that  she 
was  in  heaven  and  sitting  at  the  right  hand 
of  God.  She  declared  this  over  and  over 
again,  while  shamelessly  committing  man- 
ustrupation!  Krafft-Ebing  calls  attention 
to  this  relation  between  religious  and  sexual 
feeling  in  psycho-pathological  states.  "It 
suffices,"  says  he,  "to  recall  how  intense  sen- 
suality makes  itself  manifest  in  the  clinical 
history  of  many  religious  maniacs;  the  mot- 
ley mixture  of  religious  and  sexual  delu- 
sions that  is  so  frequently  observed  in  psy- 
choses (e.  g.,  in  maniacal  women  who  think 


102  RELIGION  AND  LUST. 

they  are  or  will  be  the  mother  of  God) ,  but 
particularly  in  masturbatic  insanity;  and 
finally,  the  sexual,  cruel  self-punishment, 
injuries,  self-castrations,  and  even  self-cru- 
cifixions, resulting  from  abnormal  religio- 
sexual  feeling."93 

An  example  of  the  last  mentioned  self- 
immolation  (self-crucifixion)  is  given  by 
Berghierri,  and  is  a  remarkable  instance  of 
the  interchangeableness  of  religious  emo- 
tion and  sexual  desire  in  psychopathic  indi- 
viduals. The  man  in  question,  who  had 
been  intensely  sensual,  manufactured  a 
cross,  nailed  himself  to  it,  and  ingeniously 
managed  to  suspend  himself  and  cross  from 
the  window  of  his  sleeping  apartment. 

"All  through  the  history  of  insanity  the 
student  has  occasion  to  observe  this  close 
alliance  of  sexual  and  religious  ideas; 
an  alliance  which  may  be  partly  accounted 
for  because  of  the  prominence  which  sexual 

(93)   Krafft-Ebing,  Psychopathia  Sexualis,  p.  8. 


RELIGION  AND  LUST.  103 

themes  have  in  most  creeds,  as  illustrated 
in  ancient  times  by  the  phallus  worship  of 
the  Egyptians,  the  ceremonies  of  the  Friga 
cultus  of  the  Saxons,  the  frequent  and  de- 
tailed reference  to  sexual  topics  in  the  Ko- 
ran and  several  other  books  of  the  kind,  and 
which  is  further  illustrated  in  the  perform- 
ances which,  to  come  down  to  a  modern 
period,  characterize  the  religious  revival 
and  camp-meeting  as  they  tinctured  their 
medieval  model,  the  Miinster  Anabaptist 
movement."94 

Men,  owing  to  their  greater  freedom, 
soon  learn  the  difference  of  the  sexes  and 
the  delights  of  sexual  congress;  women, 
hedged  in  by  conventionalities  and  deterred 
by  their  innate  passivity,  remain,  for  the 
most  part,  in  ignorance  of  sexual  knowl- 
edge until  their  marriage.  For  this  reason 
it  happens  that  very  many  more  women 
than  men  experience  religious  emotion. 

(94)   Spitzka:   Insanity,  p.  39. 


104  RELIGION   AND   LUST. 

Young  married  men  and  women,  who  are 
in  perfect  sexual  health,  and  who  have  not 
experienced  religion  before  marriage,  sel- 
dom give  this  emotion  a  single  thought  un- 
til late  in  life,  when  both  libido  and  vita  sex- 
ualis  are  on  the  wane  or  are  extinct.  Vol- 
tair  cynically,  though  truthfully,  observes 
that  when  woman  is  no  longer  pleasing  to 
man  she  then  turns  to  God.  A  woman  who 
has  been  disappointed  in  love  almost  invar- 
iably seeks  consolation  in  religion.  The 
virtuous  unmarried  woman,  who  has  been 
unsuccessful  in  the  pursuit  of  a  husband, 
invariably  turns  to  God  and  religion  with 
impassioned  zeal  and  energy. 

Ungratified,  or,  rather,  unsatisfied,  sen- 
suality very  frequently  gives  rise  to  great 
religio-sexual  enthusiasm.  The  circum- 
cised foreskin  of  Christ,  where  it  was  and 
what  had  become  of  it,  was  a  source  of  con- 
tinual worriment  to  the  nun  Blanbekin;  in 
an  ecstacy  of  ungratified  libido,  St.  Cather- 
ine of  Genoa  would  frequently  cast  herself 


RELIGION   AND   LUST.  105 

on  the  hard  floor  of  her  cell,  crying:  "Love! 
love!  I  can  endure  it  no  longer;"  St.  Ar- 
melle  and  St.  Elizabeth  were  troubled  with 
libido  for  the  child  Jesus  ;95  an  old  prayer  is 
quite  significant:  "Oh,  that  I  had  found 
thee,  Holy  Emanuel ;  Oh,  that  I  had  thee  in 
my  bed  to  bring  delight  to  body  and  soul! 
Come  and  be  mine,  and  my  heart  shall  be 
thy  resting-place."9'  Francis  Parkman 
calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  nuns  sent 
over  to  America  in  colonization  days  were 
frequently  seized  with  religio-sexual 
frenzy.  "She  heard,"  writes  he  of  Marie 
de  1'Incarnation,  "in  a  trance,  a  miraculous 
voice.  It  was  that  of  Christ,  promising  to 
become  her  spouse.  Months  and  years 
passed,  full  of  troubled  hopes  and  fears, 
when  again  the  voice  sounded  in  her  ear, 
with  assurance  that  the  promise  was  ful- 
filled, and  that  she  was,  indeed,  his  bride. 
Now  ensued  phenomena  which  are  not  in- 

(95)  Krafft-Ebing:  op.  cit.  ante,  p.  8,  footnote. 

(96)  Ibid. 


106  RELIGION  AND  LUST. 

frequent  among  Roman  Catholic  female  de- 
votees, when  unmarried,  or  married  unhap- 
pily, and  which  have  their  source  in  the 
necessities  of  a  woman's  nature."  (The 
italics  are  my  own.)  "To  her  excited 
thought,  her  divine  spouse  became  a  living 
presence;  and  her  language  to  him,  as  re- 
corded by  herself,  is  of  intense  passion.  She 
went  to  prayer,  agitated  and  tremulous,  as 
if  to  a  meeting  with  an  earthly  lover.  'Oh, 
my  Love,'  she  exclaimed,  'when  shall  I 
embrace  you?  Have  you  no  pity  on  the  tor- 
ments that  I  suffer?  Alas!  alas!  my  Love, 
my  Beauty,  my  Life!  Instead  of  healing 
my  pain,  you  take  pleasure  in  it.  Come,  let 
me  embrace  you,  and  die  in  your  sacred 
arms!'"97  The  historian  remarks  that  the 


(97)  Francis  Parkman:  The  Jesuits  in  North 
America,  p.  175.  "O  amour,  quand  vous  embrasserai- 
je?  N'avez  vous  point  pitie  de  moi  dans  le  tourment  que 
je  souffre?  Helasf  mon  amour,  ma  beaute,  ma  vie!  au 
lieu  de  me  guerir,  vous  vous  plaisez  a  mes  maux.  Venez 
done  que  je  vous  embrasse  et  je  meure  entre  vos  bras 
sacres."  Journal  de  Marie  de  1'Incarnation. 


RELIGION  AND  LUST.  107 

"holy  widow,"  as  her  biographers  call  her, 
is  an  example,  and  a  lamentable  one,  of  the 
tendency  of  the  erotic  principle  to  ally  itself 
with  high  religious  excitement  and  enthu- 
siasm. Further  along  he  says  that  "some 
of  the  pupils  of  Marie  de  1'Incarnation, 
also,  had  mystical  marriages  with  Christ; 
and  the  impassioned  rhapsodies  of  one  of 
them  being  overheard,  she  nearly  lost  her 
character,  as  it  was  thought  that  she  was 
apostrophizing  an  earthly  lover."91 

The  instances  of  religio-sexual  outbursts 
in  nuns  and  Roman  Catholic  female  de- 
votees who  lead  celibate  lives  are  very  num- 
erous ;  I  will,  however,  call  attention  to  but 
one  other:  St.  Veronica  was  so  much  in  love 
with  the  divine  lion  that  she  took  a  young 
lion  to  bed  with  her,  fondled  and  kissed  it, 
and  allowed  it  to  suck  her  breasts." 
Throughout  sacred  literature,  beginning 

(98)  Francis    Parkman:     The   Jesuits   in    North 
America,  p.  176. 

(99)  Friedreich:  Psychologic,  p.  389. 


108  RELIGION   AND   LUST. 

with  the  Bible  itself,  religio-sexual  feeling 
is  very  much  en  evidence.  Hosea  married 
a  prostitute  because — so  he  declared — God 
commanded  him  so  to  do.  If  Solomon's 
beautiful  song  is  typical  of  the  Church  and 
the  Christ  (as  some  theologians  teach), 
then  it  is  an  unmistakable  instance  of  re- 
ligio-sexual feeling;  religious  emotion  and 
sexual  desire  walk  hand  in  hand  through 
the  measures  of  this  impassioned  verse.  Cir- 
cumcision, now  eminently  a  religious  cere- 
mony, was,  unquestionably,  a  sexual  fetich 
and  a  phallic  rite,  which  has  been  handed 
down  from  antiquity,  when  all  the  world 
were  phallic  worshipers!  The  very  pillars 
set  up  by  the  patriarchs  in  commemoration 
of  certain  events  were  but  rude  images  of 
the  phallus,  while  not  a  few  of  the  mysteries 
of  the  Holy  of  Holies  itself  were  but  ves- 
tiges of  Chaldean  and  Egyptian  genital 
worship  !* 

(*)   A  recent  writer,  Dr.  Lydston,  expresses  sur- 
prise that  the  brothel  should  occupy  such  a  prominent 


RELIGION  AND   LUST.  109 

That  a  relationship  between,  and  an  in- 
terchangeableness  of,  these  two  widely  dis- 
similar psychical  operations,  i.  e.,  religious 
emotion  and  sexual  desire,  does  exist,  there 
can  be  no  doubt.*  Now,  what  is  the  cause 
of,  the  reason  for,  this  relationship? 
Mantegazza,  Maudsley,  Schleiermacher, 
Krafft-Ebing,  and  many  others  have  en- 
deavored, incidentally,  to  assign  reasons  for 
this  relationship,  but  have,  in  my  opinion, 
signally  failed.  Spitzka  has  tentatively, 
and  without  elaborating  his  idea  in  the 
least,  suggested  a  theory  which,  I  believe, 
solves  the  problem  in  every  essential  point. 


place  in  the  ancient  chronicles.  When  the  universality 
and  high  honor  of  phallic  worship  is  taken  into  consid- 
eration, the  entertainment  of  the  "Captain  of  the  Host" 
in  a  brothel  ceases  to  be  a  matter  or  cause  for  surprise ; 
the  prominence  given  such  entertainment  by  the  an- 
cient historians  is  perfectly  natural  and  to  be  expected. 
Compare  Lydston:  The  Diseases  of  Society,  p.  305. 

(*)  The  author  believes  that  upon  the  correlation 
of  religious  emotion  and  sexual  desire  depends,  in  a 
great  measure,  the  stability  of  sexual  morality.  Were 
it  not  for  this  correlation,  sexual  promiscuity  would  be 
the  rule  throughout  the  world. 


110  RELIGION  AND  LUST. 

Says  he  in  "Insanity,"  page  39:  This  "alli- 
ance" (between  religious  emotion  and 
libido)  "may  be  partly  accounted  for  be- 
cause of  the  prominence  which  sexual 
themes  have  in  most  creeds,  as  illustrated  in 
ancient  times  by  the  phallus  worship  of  the 
Egyptians,  the  ceremonies  of  the  Friga 
cultus  of  the  Saxons,  the  frequent  and  de- 
tailed reference  to  sexual  topics  in  the  Ko- 
ran and  several  other  books  of  the  kind, 
etc."  Dr.  Spitzka  does  not  enter  into  any 
discussion  of  the  matter;  he  simply  asserts 
his  belief  in  the  cause  of  the  relationship, 
and  then  dismisses  the  subject  without  fur- 
ther comment. 

Now,  permit  me,  as  briefly  as  possible, 
to  designate  the  cause  of  the  relationship 
between,  and  the  interchangeableness  of,  re- 
ligious feeling  and  sexual  desire,  which, 
as  I  believe,  is  to  be  found  in  the  once  wide- 
spread existence  of  phallic  worship. 

Some  ten  or  twelve  years  ago,  in  an  arti- 
cle on  Suicide,  which  was  published  in  the 


RELIGION  AND  LUST.  Ill 

American  Practitioner  and  News,  I  sug- 
gested (as  a  possible  explanation  for  certain 
psychical  phenomena)  the  existence  in  man 
of  two  consciousnesses,  an  active,  vigilant 
consciousness  and  a  pseudo-dormant  con- 
sciousness. Again,  in  the  American  Natur- 
alist, in  an  essay  entitled  "The  Psychology 
of  Hypnotism,"100  I  reasserted  this  theory 
and,  to  a  certain  extent,  elaborated  it.  I 
placed  man's  active  consciousness  in  the 
cortical  portion  of  the  brain,  and  his 
pseudo-dormant,  unconscious  consciousness 
(arbitrarily,  be  it  confessed)  in  the  basilar 
ganglia,  and  called  this  latter  consciousness, 
"ganglionic  consciousness." 

Recently,  much  has  been  written  on 
the  doctrine  of  duplex  personality,  notably 
by  Mr.  F.  W.  H.  Myers,  in  a  series 
of  papers  read  before  the  Society  of 
Psychical  Research.  Professor  Newbold 
has  also  written  very  entertainingly 


(100)  Loc.  cit.,  November,  1894. 


112  RELIGION  AND  LUST. 

and  instructively  on  this  subject.  While 
not  fully  accepting  the  theory  of  "du- 
plex personality,"  i.  e.,  active  conscious- 
ness and  subliminal  consciousness  (Myers' 
name  for  the  pseudo-dormant  conscious- 
ness), as  having  been  proven,  Newbold 
says:  "Of  all  the  theories  developed  from 
the  point  of  independence,  Mr.  Myers'  is 
the  most  comprehensive  in  its  scope,  is  kept 
in  most  constant  touch  with  what  the  author 
regards  as  facts,  and  displays  the  greatest 
philosophic  insight."101  According  to  the 
theory  of  duplex  personality,  many  in- 
stincts, desires,  and  emotions  have  been 
crowded  out  of  the  active  consciousness  and 
have  been  relegated  to  the  pseudo-dormant 
consciousness.  This  has  been  brought  about 
by  a  "process  of  selection  out  of  an  infinity 
of  possible  elements  solely  on  the  grounds 
of  utility."  Thus  the  cause  for  our  horror 
of  incest  is  hidden  away  in  our  subliminal 

(101)   Newbold:       Appletons     Popular     Science 
Monthly,  February,  1897,  ?•  5i6« 


RELIGION  AND   LUST.  113 

consciousness ;  yet  we  cannot  but  think,  with 
Westermarck,  that  this  instinct  is  but  the 
result  of  natural  selection,102  the  utility  of 
the  factor  or  factors  occasioning  it  being  no 
longer  in  evidence  or  required.  Again,  at 
certain  seasons,  man  is  seized  with  wald- 
llebe  (forest-love)  and  longs  to  flee  from 
the  haunts  of  men,  and,  with  gun  and  rod, 
to  revert,  as  far  as  possible,  to  the  state  of 
his  savage  ancestors.  The  desire  is  safely 
hidden  away  in  his  subliminal  conscious- 
ness until  favoring  circumstances  tempt  it 
forth.  It  is  not  alone  in  "sleep,  dreams, 
hypnosis,  trance,  and  ecstacy  that  we  see  a 
temporary  subsidence  of  the  upper  con- 
sciousness and  the  upheaval  of  a  subliminal 
stratum";  there  are  many  other  states  and 
many  other  causes  for  this  strange  psychical 
phenomenon. 

I  have  demonstrated  in  the  preceding 
pages  that  the  worship  of  the  generative 

(102)   Westermarck:    History   of  Human    Mar- 
riage, p.  352. 


114  RELIGION  AND  LUST. 

principle  was  almost,  if  not  wholly,  univer- 
sal ;  I  have  also  shown  that  the  beliefs,  rites, 
and  ceremonies  of  this  cult  made  a  lasting 
impression  upon  the  minds  of  every  people 
among  whom  it  gained  a  foothold.  Take 
the  case  of  the  ancient  Hebrews.  Notwith- 
standing the  fact  that  they  were  tried  in  the 
furnace  of  Javeh's  awful  wrath  time  and 
again;  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  fam- 
ine, pestilence,  war,  and  imprisonment  de- 
stroyed them  by  thousands;  and,  notwith- 
standing the  fact  that  they  were  threatened 
with  utter  and  absolute  annihilation — all 
on  account  of  this  cult — they  would  not 
wholly  abandon  it.  The  words  of  the 
prophets  become  almost  pathetic  as  we 
read,  over  and  over  again,  that,  although 
the  kings  did  that  which  was  pleasing  in 
the  sight  of  the  Lord,  "the  high  places  and 
the  groves  were  not  destroyed."  Take  the 
case  of  the  Aztecs.  Crushed  beneath  the 
iron  heels  of  Spain's  hardy  buccaneers,  an 
utterly  broken  and  conquered  race,  Cortez 


RELIGION  AND  LUST.  115 

turned  them  over  to  the  ministering  care  of 
his  zealous  priests.  The  prison,  agonizing 
torture,  and  the  awful  stake  succeeded,  at 
last,  in  Christianizing  them;  they  became 
children  of  Holy  Mother  Church!  And 
yet,  hundreds  of  years  after  this  "glorious 
victory  of  the  cross,"  Biart  finds  the  humble 
offerings  of  their  descendants  at  the  feet  of 
Mictlanteuctli!  The  modern  Christian 
Indian,  in  the  deep  shadows  of  the  night, 
steals  forth  to  offer  up  in  secrecy  a  prayer 
at  the  feet  of  one  of  the  phallic  trinity! 
What  matters  it  to  the  modern  Aztec  that 
his  petition  is  offered  to  the  ruler  of  Mict- 
lan,  the  hell  of  his  forefathers,  instead  of  to 
the  mighty  Ipalnemoani,  the  Life- 
Giver?103  In  his  opinion,  Mictlanteuctli 
represents  the  entire  Aztec  theogony,  for 
has  not  his  white  priest  kept  the  name  of 
this  god  green  in  his  memory?  All  the 
other  gods  have  been  forgotten;  their  per- 

(103)   Biart:   The  Aztecs,  ?,  no. 


116  RELIGION   AND   LUST. 

sonalities  have  been  absorbed  into  that  of 
the  god  of  hell,  for  he  has  had  advertisers 
in  the  shape  of  Catholic  priests  ever  since 
the  fall  of  the  Aztec  Empire!  Take  the 
case  of  the  Peruvians.  Although  the  Place 
of  Gold  and  the  beautiful  Virgins  of  the 
Sun  are  not  even  memories  to  the  descend- 
ants of  the  Incas,  the  religion  which  gave 
rise  to  them  is  not  wholly  forgotten ;  "phal- 
lic rites  and  ceremonies  are  to  be  observed 
interwoven  with  their  Christian  ritual  and 
belief!"  Take  the  case  of  the  Roman  Cath- 
olic devotees  of  Isernia,  of  Varailles,  of 
Lyons,  of  hundreds  of  other  places  during 
the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
Priapus  died  when  the  first  Christian  em- 
peror took  his  seat  on  the  throne  of  Impe- 
rial Rome,  and  yet,  hundreds  and  hundreds 
of  years  thereafter,  we  behold  some  of  the 
mysteries  of  Eleusis  almost  within  the 
shadow  of  St.  Peter's! 

Now,  why  is  this?  There  can  be  but  one 
answer,  and  that  is  that  these  people  simply 


RELIGION   AND   LUST.  117 

inherited  a  portion  of  the  psychos  of  their 
forefathers,  which  made  the  tenets  of  this 
religion  natural  and  easy  of  belief.  I  have 
demonstrated,  I  believe,  that  religious  feel- 
ing was  not  a  psychical  trait  in  the  begin- 
ning; like  a  number  of  other  mental  attri- 
butes, it  was  the  result  of  evolution.104  Men- 
tal abstraction,  especially  as  associated  with 
religious  feeling,  was  the  result  of  psychical 
growth,  of  psychically  inherited  experi- 
ences.* As  psychos  grew  beneath  the  fos- 
tering influence  of  ages  of  experience,  the 

(104)  Huxley:  Essays;  Haeckel:  The  History  of 
Creation;  Haeckel:  The  Evolution  of  Man;  Peschel: 
The  Races  of  Man;  De  Quatrefages:  The  Human 
Species;  Draper:  The  Conflict  Between  Religion  and 
Science;  White:  History  of  the  Warfare  of  Science 
with  Theology;  Romanes:  Mental  Evolution  in  Man; 
Wallace:  The  Malay  Archipelago  (The  Races  of  Man 
in  the  Malay  Archipelago,  c.  xl)  ;  Darwin's  Works; 
Maudsley:  The  Physiology  of  Mind;  Tylor:  Anthrop- 
ology; Spencer:  Synthetic  Philosophy — Prin.  Psych., 
Prin.  So  do  I. 

(*)  The  sense  of  familiarity  implies  previous  per- 
ception now  dissociated,  but  subconsciously  present  and 
struggling  up  toward  the  surface  of  the  upper  conscious- 
ness to  gain  recognition.  Boris  Sidis :  Multiple  Person- 
ality, p.  51. 


118  RELIGION   AND   LUST. 

mind  became  able  to  formulate  abstract 
thought.  In  the  beginning,  the  process  of 
ratiocination  was,  necessarily,  very  simple ; 
but,  simple  as  it  was,  it  was  able  to  recog- 
nize the  source  of  life — first,  in  the  sun, 
then,  in  the  second  place,  in  man  himself; 
and,  finally  and  abstractly,  in  a  source  out- 
side of,  but  connected  with,  man.  This  ab- 
stract source,  which  sprung  from  sexuality, 
ab  initio,  they  deified  and  worshiped.  Thus 
we  see  that,  in  the  very  beginning,  the  wor- 
ship of  the  generative  principle  sprung 
from,  and  was  a  part  of,  man  himself. 
Throughout  thousands  and  thousands  of 
years,  religious  feeling  and  sexual  desire, 
the  component  parts  of  phallic  adoration, 
were  intimately  associated;  finally,  religio- 
sexuality  became  an  instinct,  just  as  a  belief 
in  the  existence  of  a  double  or  soul  became 
an  instinct. 

Belief  in  the  existence  of  a  soul  has 
never  been  repressed;  its  utility  is  still  rec- 
ognized; hence,  it  is  present  in  our  active 


RELIGION  AND  LUST.  119 

consciousness.  The  accumulated  experi- 
ences of  civilization  have,  however,  de- 
clared the  inutility  of  phallic  worship, 
hence,  it  has  been  crowded  out  of  our  active 
consciousness  by  a  process  of  selection  and 
has  been  relegated  to  the  innermost  recesses 
of  our  subliminal  consciousness,  where  also 
dwell  many  other  formerly  active  instincts 
of  our  savage  ancestors.  When  circum- 
stances favoring  their  appearances  occur, 
these  pseudo-dormant  instincts  always  be- 
come evident;  it  is  due  to  this  fact  that  the 
correlation  of  religious  emotion  and  sexual 
desire  exists. 


VIRAGINITY  AND  EFFEMINA- 
TION. 

In  following  up  the  chain  of  evolution 
in  animal  life  from  its  inception  in  primor- 
dial protoplasm  to  its  end,  as  we  now  find 
it,  we  discover  that  the  interlinking  organ- 
isms are,  in  the  beginning,  either  asexual  or 
hermaphroditic.  The  moneron,  the  lowest 
form  of  animal  life,  simply  multiplies  by 
division.  The  different  elements  through 
which  propagation  and  generation  are  car- 
ried on,  are  undoubtedly  present  even  in 
the  moneron,  but  are  not  differentiated. 
The  moneron  is  an  organless,  structureless 
organism,  consequently  asexual.  The  cell, 
on  the  contrary,  is  hermaphroditic,  for  it 
contains  within  itself  the  necessary  elements 
for  reproducing  itself.  The  amoeba  is  the 
connecting  link  which  connects  all  terrene 
life  with  primitive  bathybian  protoplasm, 
and  is,  strictly  speaking,  a  true  hermaphro- 
dite. Ascending  at  once  to  the  sixth  stage 


122  VIRAGINITY  AND  EFFEMINATION. 

in  the  ancestry  of  man,  we  come  to  the 
acoelomi,  or  worms  without  body  cavity. 
These  worms  are  phylogenetic,  conse- 
quently hermaphroditic.  I  do  not  mean  to 
say  that,  these  worms  have  the  organs  of 
each  sex  equally  developed;  therefore,  in 
the  use  of  the  word  hermaphrodite,  I  use  it 
in  its  broadest  sense.  I  simply  mean  that 
they  are  autogenetic.  In  the  rhabdocoela 
the  sexual  organs  appear  in  their  simplest 
forms — a  testis  anterior  to  a  single  or  double 
ovary.  Other  gliding  worms  have  a  more 
complex  arrangement  of  the  sexual  organs, 
but  most  of  them  are  true  hermaphrodites. 
Next  in  the  chain  of  evolutionary  develop- 
ment, and  one  step  nearer  man,  we  find  the 
soft  worms  (scolecidae)  ;  from  a  branch  of 
this  family  the  parent  group  of  vertebrates 
was  developed.  The  immediate  ancestor  of 
the  vertebrates  was  either  the  amphioxus 
(lancelet)  or  some  other  notochordate  ani- 
mal, whose  type  is  now  extinct.  Thus  we 
have  traced  hermaphroditism  from  the 


VIRAGINITY  AND  EFFEMINATION.  123 

amoeba  to  the  amphioxus,  from  the  ancestor 
of  the  parent  cell  to  the  ancestor  of  the  ver- 
tebrates. We  could  carry  it  further,  but  it 
is  unnecessary.  Effemination  and  viragin- 
ity,  are  due  directly  to  the  influence  of  that 
strange  law  laid  down  by  Darwin — the  law 
of  reversion  to  ancestral  types.  It  is  an  ef- 
fort of  nature  to  return  man  to  the  old  her- 
maphroditic form  from  which  he  was 
evolved.  It  is  an  effort  on  the  part  of  na- 
ture to  incorporate  the  individualities  of 
the  male  and  female,  both  physical  and  psy- 
chical, in  one  body.  The  phenomenon  of 
atavism  is  more  apt  to  occur  in  feeble  types 
than  in  strong,  healthy  and  well-developed 
types.  Microcephalism,  occurring,  as  it 
most  frequently  does,  among  ignorant,  ill- 
nourished,  and  unhealthy  people,  is  an  ex- 
ample. Dolichocephalism  and  a  flattening 
of  the  cranial  arch,  with  corresponding  loss 
of  capacity  in  the  skull — types  that  we  see 
everywhere  among  the  depraved  and 
vicious — are  other  examples  of  this  ten- 


124  VIRAGINITY  AND  EFFEMINATION. 

dency  of  atavism  to  seize  on  weakened  and 
unhealthy  subjects.  Effemination  finds 
more  victims  among  the  wealthy  and  the 
educated  than  among  the  poor  and  unedu- 
cated. This  phenomenon  is  a  psychic 
rather  than  a  physical  hermaphroditism, 
and  is  directly  traceable  to  the  enervation 
produced  by  the  habits  of  the  wealthy  and 
unemployed.  Wealth  begets  luxury,  lux- 
ury begets  debauchery  and  consequent  ener- 
vation. Periods  of  moral  decadence  in  the 
life  of  a  nation  are  always  coincident  with 
periods  of  luxury  and  great  wealth,  with 
consequent  enervation  and  effemination ; 
examples  of  this  may  be  found  in  the  his- 
tories of  Rome,  Greece,  and  France.  Dur- 
ing the  reign  of  Louis  XV.,  examples  of 
effemination  crowded  into  the  court  and 
vied  with  the  royal  fop  in  the  splendor  of 
their  raiment  and  effeminacy  of  their  bear- 
ing. Psychic  hermaphroditism  does  not 
occur  naturally  in  uncivilized  or  half-civil- 
ized races.  The  reason  for  this  is  patent. 


VIRAGINITY  AND  EFFEMINATION.  125 

Atavism  finds  among  them  no  weakened 
and  enverated  subjects  on  whom  to  perpe- 
trate this  strange  travesty  on  nature. 

Large  cities  are  the  hotbeds  and  breed- 
ing-places of  the  various  neuroses.  There 
general  paresis  treads  closely  upon  the 
heels  of  sexual  neurasthenia,  while  the  vic- 
tims of  hysteria  and  kindred  ills  are  almost 
countless  in  their  number.  What  wonder, 
then,  that  the  offspring  of  such  parents 
should  be  weak  and  neurasthenic,  and  fall 
easy  victims  to  the  thousand  and  one  erotic 
fancies  which  beset  them!  What  wonder 
that  here  atavism  finds  its  richest  field,  and 
plays  its  strangest  and  most  fearful  pranks, 
sending  men  into  the  world  with  the  tastes, 
desires,  and  habits  of  women,  and  women 
with  all  the  mental  hibitudes  of  men!  Juve- 
nal wrote  in  scathing,  searing  sarcasm  of 
the  degeneracy  of  the  Roman  youth;  ef- 
femination  was  very  prevalent,  and  this  bit- 
ter satirist  wrote  burning  words  against 
their  degrading  and  bestial  practices.  It 


126  VIRAGINITY  AND  EFFEMINATION. 

seems  to  me  that  we  are  beginning  to  need  a 
Juvenal  for  this  day  and  generation! 

People  divide  themselves  into  classes, 
and  these  classes  are  generally  exceedingly 
clannish.  It  is  not  considerd  "good  form" 
to  marry  out  of  the  class  to  which  an  indi- 
vidual may  belong,  consequently,  no  new 
types  of  individuals  are  added.  Luxury 
and  debauchery  enervate  the  classes  which 
indulge  in  them.  The  people  of  these 
classes  intermarry  among  themselves,  no 
new  blood  is  added,  hence,  in  a  very  few 
generations,  degeneration  sets  in. 

Effemination  and  viraginity  are  com- 
mon types  of  degeneration  which  always 
follow  in  the  wake  of  luxury  and  debauch- 
ery. Effemination  makes  its  appearance 
early  in  life.  The  young  boy  likes  the  soci- 
ety of  girls ;  he  plays  with  dolls,  and,  if  per- 
mitted, will  don  female  attire  and  dress  his 
hair  like  a  girl.  He  learns  to  sew,  to  knit, 
to  embroider,  to  do  "tatting."  He  becomes 
a  connoisseur  in  female  dress,  and  likes  to 


VIRAGINITY  AND  EFFEMINATION.  127 

discuss  matters  pertaining  to  the  toilet  of 
females.  He  does  not  care  for  boyish 
sports,  and  when  he  grows  older,  takes  no 
pleasure  in  the  amusements  and  pursuits  of 
his  masculine  acquaintances.  He  prefers  to 
spend  his  time  with  women  and  to  engage 
in  their  employments  and  amusements.  As 
the  change  in  his  psychic  being  becomes 
more  pronounced  and  more  overpowering, 
he  will  endeavor  to  approach  the  female  in 
gait,  attitude,  and  style  of  dress. 

I  have  seen  mothers  guilty  of  incalcula- 
ble harm  by  fostering  such  inclinations  in 
their  sons.  They  think  (the  thought  is  a 
natural  one)  that  such  perversions  -of  taste 
indicate  gentleness  and  kindliness,  and  in- 
duce their  sons  to  continue  in  the  practice 
of  them,  thus  assisting  atavism  in  its  bane- 
ful work. 

Effemination  is  a  disease  which,  taken 
at  its  inception,  can  generally  be  eradicated 
and  cured.  As  soon  as  it  is  discovered,  the 
boy's  surroundings  should  be  changed;  his 


128  VIRAGINITY  AND  EFFEMINATION. 

mind  should  be  directed  into  new  channels, 
and  his  dormant  boy's  nature  aroused.  Out- 
door exercise  and  a  free  intercourse  with 
companions  of  his  own  sex  should  be  made 
important  factors  in  the  treatment  of  an 
incipient  effeminant.  He  should  be  care- 
fully watched  until  vita  sexualis  has  been 
established;  he  should  then  be  taught  the 
dangers  of  youthful  follies  and  indiscre- 
tions. 

A  dandified  man  is  always  ridiculous, 
but  when  he  adds  to  his  foppery,  effemina- 
tion,  he  then  becomes  contemptible. 

Several  years  ago  I  had  the  opportunity 
of  studying  a  pronounced  effeminant.  He 
is  one  of  the  best  known  young  men  of  a 
Southern  city,  and  is  a  leader  in  society. 
He  took  me  to  his  "boudoir"  and  showed 
me  his  "lingerie."  The  words  quoted  are 
his  own.  His  nightgowns  were  marvels  of 
artistic  needlework,  as  far  as  I  was  able  to 
judge,  and  were  made  by  himself.  His 
nightcaps  were  "sweetly  pretty,"  and  one  of 


VIRAGINITY  AND  EFFEMINATION.  129 

them  was  a  "perfect  dream  of  beauty."  On 
his  dressing-table  were  all  the  accessories  of 
a  modern  society  woman's  toilet,  including 
rouge,  powder,  a  complete  manicure  set, 
and  numerous  bottles  of  perfumes  and  toi- 
let waters.  In  his  wardrobe  he  had.  dis- 
played on  forms,  some  six  or  eight  corsets 
and  chemisettes — "corset-covers,"  as  he  des- 
ignated them. 

This  man's  voice  and  manner  of  speak- 
ing are  decidedly  feminine;  all  the  little 
mannerisms  and  affectations  of  a  society 
woman  being  faithfully  reproduced.  I  un- 
derstand from  his  associates  that  he  is  a 
splendid  business  man,  and  that  not  a  breath 
of  scandal  has  ever  tarnished  his  good  name 
He  was  reared  by  his  mother,  and  never  as- 
sociated with  boys  until  his  sixteenth  year. 
I  understood  from  him  that  she  always 
treated  him  as  a  girl,  and  consulted  him  in 
all  things  pertaining  to  her  toilet.  He 
seemed  utterly  unconscious  of  his  anomal- 
ous condition,  and  as  his  business  associates 


130  VIRAGINITY  AND  EFFEMINATION. 

are  gentlemen,  and  his  intimate  friends  are 
ladies,  he  may  drift  through  life  without  a 
single  jar  to  mar  the  serenity  of  his  exist- 
ence. 

Viraginity  is,  comparatively,  an  infre- 
quent occurrence,  but  under  its  influence 
the  unfortunate  victims  are  guilty  of  start- 
ling vagaries.  The  recent  case  of  Alice 
Mitchell,  who  killed  Miss  Ward,  at  Mem- 
phis, Tenn.,  is  an  example  of  pronounced 
viraginity.  We  see  daily  in  the  newspa- 
pers accounts  of  women  who  masquerade  as 
men,  and  history  abounds  in  like  instances. 
The  celebrated  writer  Count  Sandor  V.  was 
a  woman  who  posed  as  a  man,  and  who  was 
in  fact  Sarolta  (Charlotte),  Countess  V. 
"Among  many  foolish  things  that  her  father 
encouraged  in  her  was  the  fact  that  he 
brought  her  up  as  a  boy,  called  her  Sandor, 
allowed  her  to  ride,  drive,  and  hunt,  admir- 
ing her  muscular  energy."  At  the  age  of 
thirteen  she  ran  away  from  school,  where 
she  had  been  sent  by  her  mother,  and  re- 


VIRAGINITY  AND  EFFEMINATION.  131 

turned  home.  "Sarolta  returned  to  her 
mother,  who,  however,  could  do  nothing 
and  was  compelled  to  allow  her  daughter 
to  again  become  Sandor,  wear  male  clothes, 
and,  at  least  once  a  year,  to  fall  in  love  with 
persons  of  her  own  sex." 

Mothers,  early  in  life,  though  not  from 
any  sense  of  danger  to  their  daughters,  be- 
gin to  eradicate  the  torn-boy  inclinations  in 
their  female  children;  hence  the  compara- 
tive infrequency  of  viraginity.  The  con- 
genital viragint  will  always  remain  some- 
what masculine  in  her  tastes  and  ideas,  but 
her  inclinations  and  desires  having  been 
turned  toward  femininity  early  in  life,  she 
will  escape  the  horrors  of  complete  viragin- 
ity or  gynandry.  The  victim  of  effemina- 
tion,  however,  is  saved  by  no  such  acciden- 
tal forethought.  The  ignorant  mother  fos- 
ters feminine  inclinations  and  desires  in  her 
effeminate  son  until  his  psychic  being  be- 
comes entirely  changed,  and  not  even  the 


132  VIRAGINITY  AND  EFFEMINATION. 

establishment  of  vita  sexualis  will  save  him 
from  effemination. 

An  only  son,  who  is  in  the  least  degree 
neurasthenic,  runs  the  risk  of  becoming  an 
effeminant  under  the  tutelage  of  a  loving 
but  ignorant  mother  who  encourages  his 
feminine  tastes  and  inclinations.  A  young 
man  of  my  acquaintance,  who  is  an  only 
son,  is  so  situated.  This  young  man  devotes 
his  entire  attention  to  matters  of  the  toilet. 
He  paints  his  cheeks  and  powders  his  face ; 
even  his  eyebrows  and  eyelashes  are  anoint- 
ed with  some  dark-colored  ointment  or 
pomade. 

Effemination  and  viraginity  are  more 
prevalent  in  the  Old  World  than  in  the 
United  States.  The  civilization  and  settle- 
ment of  the  United  States  are,  compara- 
tively speaking,  new.  The  people  are,  as 
yet,  a  young,  strong,  and  vigorous  nation. 
Years  of  luxury  and  debauchery  have  not 
yet  brought  the  penalty  of  enervation  and 
neurasthenia  to  the  masses,  though  in  cer- 


VIRAGINITY  AND  EFFEMINATION.  133 

tain  circles  of  society,  it  is  becoming  pain- 
fully evident  that  that  penalty  is  being 
even  now  exacted. 

In  this  article  I  have  described  only 
mild  types  of  viraginity  and  effemination. 
In  the  more  pronounced  types  of  these  sin- 
gular examples  of  atavism  or  reversion,  the 
victims  commit  the  most  unheard  of  and 
the  most  unnatural  acts. 

Almost  every  case  of  effemination  or 
viraginity  can  be  cured  if  recognized  and 
treated  in  its  incipiency.  The  parents 
should  be  the  physicians.  They  should 
keep  a  watchful  supervision  over  their  off- 
spring, and  as  soon  as  any  evidences  of  ef- 
femination or  viraginity  become  apparent, 
treatment,  both  physical  and  psychical, 
should  at  once  be  instituted. 

Effemination  has  occasioned  the  down- 
fall of. many  nations;  let  us  guard  against  it 
with  all  our  power.  Let  us  train  up  our 
boys  to  be  manly  men,  and  our  girls  to  be 
womanly  women. 


BORDERLANDS  AND  CRANKDOM. 

When  that  bilious  critic  and  merciless 
crucifier  of  human  foibles,  Carlyle,  himself 
a  degenerate,  wrote  that  nine-tenths  of  the 
world  were  fools,  he  was  much  nearer  truth 
than  most  men  think.  When  we  take  an 
introspective  view  of  our  sane  personality, 
we  shudder  to  see  how  near  it  is  to  the  bor- 
derlands of  insanity  and  the  bizarre  and 
eccentric  world  of  crankdom.  There 
hardly  lives  a  man  who  does  not  possess 
some  eccentricity,  or  who  does  not  cherish, 
hidden,  perhaps,  deep  within  himself,  some 
small  delusion,  which  he  is  ashamed  to  ac- 
knowledge to  the  outside  world.  Social  re- 
lations and  the  iron  rules  of  custom  hold  in 
place  the  balance-wheel  of  many  a  disor- 
dered mind.  The  mental  equipoise  is 
kept  at  the  normal  standard  only  by  the 
powerful  aid  of  the  will,  supported  and 
assisted  by  extraneous  adjuvants,  such  as 
fear  of  punishment,  fear  of  personal  harm, 


136  BORDERLANDS. 

and,  above  all,  by  the  fear  of  ridicule. 
Many  a  man  hugs  his  delusions  closely  to 
his  heart,  indulges  them  only  in  the  secret 
recesses  of  his  soul,  and,  their  sole  owner 
and  acquaintance,  carries  them  with  him  to 
his  grave. 

Any  man  who  has  a  retentive  memory, 
and  one  capable  of  minute  analysis,  can 
look  back  in  his  life  and  recall  moments 
when  his  insane  personality  got  the  better 
of  his  will,  and  ran  riot  in  forbidden  path- 
ways. He  may  not  have  committed  an  in- 
sane act;  yet  the  thought,  the  impulse,  the 
delusion  was  there  and  only  outside  influ- 
ences kept  it  from  breaking  forth.  Who 
fails  to  remember  certain  times  in  his  life 
when  he  has  had  an  almost  overpowering 
desire  to  cry  out  in  church,  or  to  laugh  on 
some  sad  or  solemn  occasion;  or,  having  a 
razor  in  his  hand,  has  had  an  impulse,  sud- 
den and  intense,  to  draw  it  across  his  throat; 
or,  being  on  some  high  place,  has  been 
seized  with  the  desire  to  hurl  himself 


BORDERLANDS.  137 

downward?  This  shows  how  near  indeed 
the  healthy  mind  ever  hovers  on  the  border- 
lands of  insanity. 

Man  stands  so  close  to  the  portals  of  in- 
sanity that  he  can  look  through  the  gate- 
way, when  he  takes  an  introspective  view 
of  his  psychical  being,  and  can  see  the 
phantoms  and  mental  ghosts  of  his  insane 
personality. 

We  have  every  reason  to  believe  that, 
among  civilized  races,  there  is  a  vast 
amount  of  latent  insanity.  Taking  the 
tables  of  our  insane  asylums,  we  find  a 
thousand  and  one  causes  given  as  the  excit- 
ing factors  in  the  mental  overthrow. 
Love,  religion,  anger,  disappointment,  etc., 
down  through  the  long  list  of  psychic  and 
aesthetic  emotions,  until  it  seems  as  though 
even  a  breath  of  wind  would  be  sufficient 
to  destroy  the  mental  equipoise. 

Among  savage  and  uncivilized  races,  in- 
sanity is  of  infrequent  occurrence.  Only 
when  a  race  begins  to  elevate  itself  and  take 


138  BORDERLANDS. 

on  a  higher  view  of  morality,  when  new 
rules  and  new  laws,  new  customs  and  inno- 
vations, tending  to  place  individuals  in  a 
state  of  comparison,  arise,  does  insanity 
make  its  appearance.  The  untutored  sav- 
age, living  in  a  state  of  communism,  is  un- 
troubled by  the  jealousies  and  heart-burn- 
ings of  his  civilized  congener.  He  lives  in 
the  to-day  and  allows  the  to-morrow  to  take 
care  of  itself.  Devoid  of  ambition,  a  mere 
animal,  sensual  and  indolent,  he  cares  only 
for  the  gratification  of  his  physical  desires. 
The  mental  attributes  of  a  civilized  being 
are,  in  him,  wanting. 

Psychos  is  the  result  of  evolutionary  de- 
velopment, and  the  chief  reason  why  insan- 
ity is  not  as  prevalent  in  the  savage  as  in 
the  civilized  man,  is  because  the  brain  of 
the  savage  lacks  development.  I  do  not 
wish  to  convey  the  idea  that  insanity  is 
purely  psychical  in  its  nature.  Insanity  is 
the  result  of  a  material  change  in  the  struc- 
ture of  the  brain  produced  by  morbific  ac- 


BORDERLANDS.  139 

tion.  The  manifestations  of  insanity  are 
merely  the  symptoms  of  a  disease  that  in- 
volves the  brain.  The  savage  has  less  de- 
velopment of  psychical  function,  conse- 
quently he  is  less  liable  to  mental  lesion.  I 
mean  by  psychical  function  that  portion  of 
the  brain  in  which  psychos  has  its  origin. 
Alienists  consider  the  habits  of  men  as  be- 
ing the  factor  in  the  production  of  insanity. 
Habits  and  heredity  are  undoubted  factors 
in  the  production  of  diseased  minds,  and, 
in  fact,  are  the  chief  agents.  You  cannot, 
however,  expect  to  find  a  disordered  func- 
tion where  that  function  is  absent.  Savages 
have  paresis,  apoplexy,  and  imbecility,  sel- 
dom or  never  insanity.  The  reason  is  pat- 
ent— they  lack  the  psychic  function,  that 
peculiar  element,  whatever  it  may  be, 
which  raises  civilized  man  so  high  above 
them.  That  this  element  can  be  developed 
in  savages  I  do  not  for  one  instant  deny. 
The  ploughshare  of  evolutionary  civiliza- 
tion will  bring  it  to  the  surface  sooner  or 


140  BORDERLANDS. 

later,  and  when  it  does  insanity  follows.  I 
have  only  to  point  to  the  American  negro 
to  prove  the  truth  of  my  proposition;  even 
he  is  partially  exempt,  simply  because  his 
civilization  is  of  such  recent  date  that  his 
brain  has  not  yet  acquired  its  full  quota  of 
the  psychic  element. 

I  will  venture  to  assert,  so  true  is  the  fact 
that  insanity  is  the  product  of  civilization, 
that,  if  it  were  not  for  the  combating  influ- 
ences of  social  laws,  assisted  not  a  little  by 
scientific  medical  aid,  all  North  America 
could  not  contain  the  vast  and  enormous 
army  that  would  constitute  the  civilized 
world's  array  of  lunatics. 

There  seems  to  be  in  the  minds  of  men 
an  instinctive  awe  of  anything  that  apper- 
tains to  the  insane.  In  olden  times  a  dis- 
ordered mind  was  considered  of  divine  or 
diabolic  origin  as  it  evinced  good  or  evil 
tendencies.  This  belief  lasted  even 
until  the  present  century.  Many  old 
women  who  were  the  victims  of  senile  de- 


BORDERLANDS.  141 

mentia  and  kindred  ills,  were  accused  of 
witchcraft  and  intercourse  with  the  devil, 
here  in  the  United  States,  not  a  century  ago. 
Witches  were  executed  in  England  and 
men  burned  at  the  stake  in  Spain,  not  two 
hundred  years  ago,  for  the  crime  of  demon- 
iacal possession.  Even  in  this  enlightened 
age  men  are  accustomed  to  consider  insan- 
ity rather  from  its  psychical  standpoint 
than  from  its  physical  aspect.  They  do  not 
take  into  consideration  the  fact  that  insanity 
is  due  to  a  physical  lesion,  and  that  its  vaga- 
ries are  but  the  symptoms  of  brain  disease 
or  brain  deformity.  The  inhabitants  of  the 
borderlands  are  invested  with  a  certain 
shadowy  mystery  which  separates  them 
from  the'rest  of  mankind,  and  which  makes 
them  appear  to  us  as  denizens  of  another 
psychical  world  than  ours. 

In  the  Middle  Ages,  cranks,  whose  ec- 
centricities took  a  religious  turn,  were  con- 
sidered holy.  St.  Simon  Stylites  was  a  very 
pronounced  crank,  and  a  very  holy  man 


142  BORDERLANDS. 

also,  because  he  chose  to  live  the  greater 
portion  of  his  life  perched  on  a  pillar  sev- 
enty feet  high.  St.  Anthony  was  another 
holy  crank  who  never,  in  all  his  life,  washed 
his  feet.  Poor  Joan  of  Arc  was  burned  at 
the  stake  because  she  was  "possessed  of  a 
false  and  lying  devil."  She  has  been  re- 
cently proposed  for  canonization  by  the 
same  church  that  burned  her,  and  thus,  in  a 
measure,  had  justice  done  her.  I  do  not 
think,  however,  that  this  is  any  recompense 
for  the  terrible  agony  inflicted  on  this  un- 
fortunate victim  of  hystero-epilepsy. 

Says  Maudsley  in  "Responsibility  in 
Mental  Disease":  "Some  of  the  prophets 
of  the  Old  Testament  presented  symptoms 
which  can  hardly  be  interpreted  as  other 
than  the  effects  of  madness;  certainly  if 
they  were  not  mad,  they  imitated  very  close- 
ly some  of  its  most  striking  features."  Jere- 
miah takes  a  long  journey  to  the  river  Eu- 
phrates and  hides  a  linen  girdle  in  a  hole 
of  a  rock.  He  then  returns  home  and  in  a 


BORDERLANDS.  143 

few  days  makes  the  same  journey,  and  finds 
the  girdle  rotten  and  good  for  nothing. 
Ezekiel  digs  a  hole  in  the  wall  of  his  house, 
and  through  it  removes  his  household 
goods,  instead  of  through  the  door.  Hosea 
marries  a  prostitute  because  he  said  he  had 
been  commanded  by  God  so  to  do.  Isaiah 
stripped  himself  naked  and  paraded  up  and 
down  in  sight  of  all  the  people. 

Some  of  the  greatest  changes  in  the 
world's  history  have  been  effected  by  dwell- 
ers in  the  borderlands.  Mahomet  was  an 
epileptic,  and  his  first  vision  was  the  result 
on  an  epileptic  convulsion  or  seizure.  The 
character  of  his  visions  was  exactly  like  that 
of  those  visions  which  an  epileptic  sees  and 
describes  at  the  present  time.  Mahomet  be- 
lieved in  his  visions,  and,  what  is  more,  got 
more  than  half  the  world  to  believe  in  them 
also.  Gautama  was  a  dweller  in  the  bor- 
derlands, yet  his  followers  now  number  five 
hundred  millions. 

The  novel  mode  in  which  an  insane  man 


144  BORDERLANDS. 

regards  things  may  be  an  inspiration  which 
reflection  could  never  attain,  and  it  some- 
times happens  that  opinions  which  seem  to 
the  world  to  be  the  ravings  of  a  madman, 
have  turned  out  to  be  true.  The  insane  man 
has  the  world  against  him,  and  though  he 
may  pose  for  a  short  time  as  a  reformer, 
sooner  or  later  lands  in  the  asylum. 

It  sometimes  happens  that  the  crank 
will  succeed  in  getting  converts.  A  notable 
instance  is  Schweinfurth,  or  "the  Christ," 
as  he  calls  himself.  I  am  firmly  convinced 
that  this  man  believes  in  his  delusions.  One 
thing  is  certain,  and  that  is,  his  disciples  be- 
lieve in  him  implicitly.  This  man  is  dan- 
gerous to  society,  inasmuch  as  he  has 
caused  the  separation  of  several  wives  from 
their  husbands;  the  wives  abandoning  their 
husbands  to  follow  him  to  "Heaven,"  as  he 
calls  his  farm  house. 

The  crank  is,  generally,  a  harmless  in- 
dividual, and  is  not  anti-social  unless  his  de- 


BORDERLANDS.  145 

lusions  take  the  form  of  homicidal  impulse, 
pyromania,  kleptomania,  etc. 

Homicidal  impulse  is  the  most  danger- 
ous to  society  of  the  many  mental  vagaries 
and  derangements  which  afflict  the  dwell- 
ers in  the  borderlands.  Its  invasion  is  sud- 
den and  its  impulse  is,  generally,  overpow- 
ering. A  man  may  be  walking  the  streets 
presumably  in  perfect  health,  and  yet  have, 
all  the  while,  a  voice  whispering  in  his  ear 
"kill,  kill."  His  insane  desire  at  length 
reaches  its  acme,  and  he  throws  aside  every 
mental  restraint  and  kills  the  first  individ- 
ual he  may  chance  to  meet.  Again,  he  may 
desire  to  kill  some  particular  individual, 
and  will  carefully  and  systematically  ar- 
range his  plans  for  the  successful  enactment 
of  the  homicide.  The  murderers  of  Gar- 
field  and  Harrison  probably  belong  to  this 
latter  class,  though  in  the  case  of  Prender- 
gast,  the  slayer  of  Mayor  Harrison,  this 
opinion  may  be  erroneous.  There  is  some- 
thing about  his  photograph  that  leads  me 


146  BORDERLANDS. 

to  believe  that  he  is  a  moral  imbecile,  rather 
than  an  intellectual  dyscrasiac. 

A  clerk  in  a  solicitor's  office,  at  Alton, 
Hampshire,  England,  one  afternoon  took  a 
walk  outside  the  town,  when  he  met  some 
children.  He  persuaded  one  of  these,  a  girl 
of  nine,  to  go  with  him  into  a  neighboring 
garden.  A  short  while  after,  he  was  seen 
walking  quietly  home ;  he  was  seen  to  wash 
himself  in  the  river  and  then  go  back  to 
his  office.  The  little  girl  did  not  return 
home,  and,  search  having  been  instituted, 
her  dismembered  body  was  found  strewn 
about  the  garden.  The  clerk  was  arrested, 
and  in  his  diary  was  found  this  entry,  re- 
cently made:  "Killed  a  little  girl;  it  was 
fine  and  hot."  This  man  was  either  a  sadis- 
tic sexual  pervert,  or  a  victim  of  homicidal 
impulse.  Maudsley  gives  this  instance  as 
an  example  of  the  latter,  while  Kraft- 
Ebing  gives  it  as  an  example  of  the  former. 
There  is  a  great  difference  between  these 
two  mental  derangements.  The  victim  of 


BORDERLANDS.  147 

homicidal  impulse  kills  without  any  ulte- 
rior object,  while  the  sadist  kills  in  order  to 
gratify  his  unnatural  and  perverted  sexual 
appetite. 

The  victim  of  homicidal  impulse  is,  to 
all  outward  appearances,  perfectly  sane 
otherwise.  His  impulse  frequently  leaves 
him  for  years  and  then  returns  with  over- 
powering force. 

Epileptics  who  have  just  passed  through 
violent  convulsions,  will  frequently  attack 
bystanders  with  great  fury.  Some  alienists 
declare  that  homicidal  mania  is  frequently 
only  a  masked  epilepsy.  All  epileptics 
should  be  carefully  watched;  they  may  be- 
come dangerous  to  society  at  any  moment. 
Numerous  instances  are  recorded  of  mur- 
der committed  by  sufferers  from  petit  mal, 
a  form  of  epilepsy.  I  once  saw  a  negro 
walk  up  to  a  white  man,  who  was  a  stranger 
and  unknown  by  him,  and  fell  him  to  the 
earth  by  striking  him  with  a  club.  The 
negro  was  arrested,  and  the  next  day  swore 


148  BORDERLANDS. 

that  he  was  entirely  unconscious  of  having 
struck  anyone.  It  was  proven  at  his  trial 
that  he  was  subject  to  mild  epileptic  at- 
tacks. 

I  believe  that  all  suicides  are  due  to 
mental  aberration.  It  may  be  the  result  of 
a  momentary  and  sudden  loss  of  mental 
equipoise,  or  the  final  and  fatal  ending  of  a 
premeditated  desire  carried  through  days, 
weeks,  months,  and  even  years. 

We  see  a  man,  blessed  with  everything 
that  makes  life  enjoyable,  genial,  gay,  with 
a  ready  smile  and  kindly  word  for  every- 
one, suddenly,  in  a  moment,  pass  forever 
out  into  the  unknown — self-killed,  a  victim 
of  his  own  creation.  We  stand  amazed! 
Why  did  he  do  it?  We  can  find  nothing  in 
his  past  or  present  condition  to  warrant 
such  an  action. 

He  was  the  victim  of  momentary  aber- 
ration, or,  perhaps,  deep  in  his  mind,  bur- 
ied and  hidden  even  from  himself,  there 
dwelt  a  desire  for  self-slaughter,  when  a 


BORDERLANDS.  149 

"physical  pain,  an  unexpected  impression,  a 
moral  affection,  an  indiscreet  proposition" 
uncovered  this  desire,  and  he  at  once  com- 
mitted the  deed! 

There  are  epidemics  of  suicide.  Let  the 
papers  chronicle  some  peculiar  method  of 
suicide  selected  by  some  unfortunate,  and 
others  will  immediately  follow  his  exam- 
ple. Unconscious  cerebration  also  hurls 
many  souls  out  of  the  world.  I  was  called 
to  see  a  gentleman  who  had  attempted  sui- 
cide by  slashing  the  radial  artery  at  the 
wrist.  I  found  him  holding  a  compress  on 
the  severed  vessel  and  greatly  alarmed.  He 
swore  to  me  that  he  was  totally  unconscious 
how  he  had  come  to  do  the  deed,  and  that 
he  did  not  know  that  he  had  cut  himself 
until  he  felt  the  pain  and  saw  the  blood 
flowing  from  the  wound! 

Viraginity  and  effemination,  while  not 
mental  insanities,  strictly  speaking,  are, 
nevertheless,  mental  deformities,  and  their 
unfortunate  victims  are  dwellers  in  the  bor- 


150  BORDERLANDS. 

derlands.  Mild  forms  of  these  types  of  de- 
generation are  very  abundant.  The  effem- 
inate, cigarette-smoking,  soda-drinking 
young  man  of  the  comic  weeklies,  and  the 
loud,  horsy,  slang-using,  vulgar,  masculine 
young  woman  are  seen  everywhere. 

Effemination  and  viraginity  are  the  re- 
sults of  the  weakening  effects  of  luxury  and 
consequent  debauchery.  Nations,  time  and 
again,  have  felt  the  dire  effects  of  effemina- 
tion  and  have  sunk  beneath  them.  The 
Grecian,  the  Roman,  the  Egyptian  nations 
are  familiar  examples.  The  satirists  of  the 
golden  age  of  the  Latin  people  dipped  their 
still t  metaphorically,  in  gall  and  bitter 
wormwood  and  berated  the  effeminate  no- 
bility time  and  again.  One  of  them  advised 
the  Roman  ladies  to  look  for  men  among 
the  gladiators  and  the  peasants!  Anacre- 
on's  poems  are  filled  with  allusions  to 
effemination  and  the  delights  of  psychic 
hermaphroditism. 

In  the  time  of  Louis  XIV.,  of  France, 


BORDERLANDS.  151 

the  royal  palaces  were  filled  to  repletion 
with  effeminants,  who  vied  with  the  women 
in  the  splendor  of  their  robes  and  the  sala- 
cious eccentricities  of  their  conduct.  The 
case  of  Alice  Mitchell,  who  killed  Freda 
Ward  in  Memphis  not  long  ago,  was  one 
of  pronounced  viraginity. 

Fortunately,  for  the  good  of  the  com- 
munity at  large,  there  are,  comparatively 
speaking,  few  viragints.  The  careful 
mother  restrains,  tempers,  and  abolishes  the 
hoydenish  habits  of  her  "torn-boy"  girl 
early  in  life,  and  turns  her  thoughts  toward 
feminine  pursuits  and  desires.  The  unfor- 
tunate efFeminant,  however,  is  encouraged 
in  his  feminine  tastes  and  habits  by  his  un- 
wise mother,  who  likes  her  boy  to  sit  beside 
her  and  sew  and  knit,  if  he  so  desires.  She 
discusses  matters  of  the  toilet  with  him,  and, 
in  fact,  treats  him  as  she  would  a  daughter. 
In  the  end,  his  psychic  hermaphroditism 
becomes  complete,  and  one  more  unfortu- 


152  BORDERLANDS. 

nate  goes  out  into  the  world  to  swell  the 
ranks  of  crankdom! 

Kleptomaniacs  are  greatly  to  be  pitied, 
for  they  are  generally  women  in  whom  the 
moral  sense  is  very  much  developed.  The 
victim  of  kleptomania  will  steal  any  and 
everything;  they  are  like  magpies  in  this 
respect.  An  acquaintance  of  mine,  a  most 
estimable  lady,  a  devout  Christian,  and  a 
most  exemplary  wife  and  mother,  is  the 
most  incorrigible  thief  I  ever  saw.  She  has 
often  picked  my  pockets  while  I  was  en- 
gaged about  her  sick-bed.  The  merchants 
of  the  city  where  she  lives  know  her  infirm- 
ity, watch  her  while  she  is  in  their  shops, 
and  respectfully  and  kindly  relieve  her  of 
her  pilferings  when  she  starts  to  leave.  She 
expresses  great  sorrow  for  her  unfortunate 
insane  impulse,  and  has  often  begged  her 
husband  to  have  her  placed  in  an  asylum. 
This  he  refuses  to  do,  as  she  is  perfectly 
sane  otherwise.  The  husband  was  called 
away  for  several  weeks,  and,  on  his  return, 


BORDERLANDS.  153 

took  me  to  his  house  and  showed  me  her 
room.  In  the  room  were  the  objects  stolen 
during  his  absence.  It  was  the  most  miscel- 
laneous collection  of  valuables  and  trash  I 
ever  saw.  She  had  gathered  together  every- 
thing from  a  darning-needle  to  a  tomb- 
stone, a  small  specimen  of  the  latter  form- 
ing a  unit  of  this  heterogeneous  whole. 
This  form  of  mental  dyscrasia  is  much 
more  frequent  than  people  suppose,  and  the 
antecedents  of  shop-lifters  and  the  like 
should  be  carefully  examined  before  a 
judgment  on  their  criminality  is  passed. 

"Eccentricity  is  certainly  not  always  in- 
sanity, but  there  can  be  no  question  that  it 
is  often  the  outcome  of  insane  temperament, 
and  may  approach  very  near  to,  or  actually 
pass  into,  insanity."  Alienists  rely  on  the 
eccentric  and  peculiar  changes  which  take 
place  in  the  characters  of  their  patients, 
who  either  present  themselves  or  are 
brought  to  them  for  treatment,  to  establish 
their  diagnosis.  If  a  modest  and  truthful 


154  BORDERLANDS. 

man  suddenly  becomes  a  braggart  and  a 
liar;  or,  if  a  humane  man  becomes  cruel, 
or  a  neat  man  slovenly,  there  is  reason  to 
suspect  brain  trouble.  The  intellect  may 
appear  intact,  so  also  the  reasoning  powers, 
but  these  eccentricities  indicate  a  deviation 
which  may  lead  to  mental  destruction.  The 
last  faculty  to  develop  in  the  mind  of  man 
is  the  moral  faculty;  this  faculty  is  the  one 
first  lost  by  diseased  brains.  If  a  man,  who 
suddenly  becomes  dissolute  and  licentious 
(who,  heretofore,  has  led  a  virtuous,  moral 
life),  be  examined,  in  nine  cases  in  ten  his 
brain  will  be  found  to  be  diseased.  The 
little  cloud,  which  at  first  is  no  larger  than 
a  man's  hand,  grows  ever  larger  and  larger, 
and  in  the  end  overspreads  the  entire  men- 
tal sky! 


GENIUS  AND  DEGENERATION. 

That  the  psychical  function  or  intellect- 
uality is  frequently  developed  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  physical  organism  is  well 
known,  and  that  genius  is  seldom  or  never 
unaccompanied  by  physical  and  mental  de- 
generation is  a  fact  that  can  be  no  longer 
denied.  I  use  the  word  degeneration  in  its 
broadest  sense,  and  intend  it  to  include  all 
kinds  of  abnormalities.  The  facts  noted 
above  are  by  no  means  recent  knowledge, 
but  were  vaguely  recognized  and  com- 
mented on  centuries  and  decades  of  centu- 
ries ago  by  the  Hebrews  and  kindred  races 
of  people.  The  Hebrew  word  nabi  means 
either  madman  or  prophet,  and  it  is  now 
admitted  that  most  of  the  prophets  gave 
evidences  of  insanity  as  well  as  genius.  The 
Greeks  and  the  Romans  recognized  this 
kinship,  and  we  read  in  the  Bible  of  a  cer- 
tain Festus,  who,  when  confronted  by  a  man 
of  genius,  and  being  unable  to  answer  his 


156  GENIUS  AND  DEGENERATION. 

arguments,  said  to  him,  "Paul,  much  learn- 
ing hath  made  thee  mad!"  Lauvergne, 
when  speaking  of  the  oxycephalic  (sugar- 
loaf)  skull,  an  unquestionable  example  of 
degeneration,  wrote  many  years  ago, 
"This  head  announces  the  monstrous  alli- 
ance of  the  most  eminent  faculty  of  man, 
genius,  with  the  most  pronounced  impulses 
to  rape,  murder,  and  theft." 

The  purpose  of  this  paper  is  to  show 
that  wherever  genius  is  observed,  we  find 
it  accompanied  by  degeneration,  which  is 
evinced  by  physical  abnormalties  or  mental 
eccentricities.  It  is  a  strange  fact,  how- 
ever, and  one  not  noticed  by  Lombroso,  or 
any  other  writer,  as  far  as  I  know,  that 
mechanical  geniuses,  or  those  who,  for  the 
most  part,  deal  with  material  facts,  do  not, 
as  a  rule,  show  any  signs  of  degeneration. 
I  have  only  to  instance  Darwin,  Galileo, 
Edison,  Watts,  Rumsey,  Howe,  and  Morse 
to  prove  the  truth  of  this  assertion.  It  is 
only  the  genius  of  aestheticism,  the  genius 


GENIUS  AND  DEGENERATION.  157 

of  the  emotion,  that  is  generally  accompa- 
nied by  unmistakable  signs  of  degenera- 
tion. 

Saul,  the  first  king  of  Israel,  was  a  man 
of  genius  and,  at  times,  a  madman.  We 
read  that,  before  his  coronation,  he  was 
seized  with  an  attack  of  madness  and  joined 
a  company  of  kindred  eccentrics.  His 
friends  and  acquaintances  were  naturally 
surprised  and  exclaimed:  "Is  Saul  among 
the  prophets?"  i.  e.,  "Has  Saul  become  in- 
sane?" Again,  we  are  told  that  he  was  sud- 
denly seized  with  an  attack  of  homicidal 
impulse,  and  tried  to  kill  David.  Before 
this  time  he  had  had  repeated  attacks  of 
madness,  which  only  the  harp  of  David 
could  control  and  subdue.  David  himself 
was  a  man  whose  mental  equilibrium  was 
not  well  established,  as  his  history  clearly 
indicates.  He  forsook  his  God,  indulged  in 
licentious  practices,  and  was,  withal,  a  very 
immoral  man  at  times.  At  his  time,  the  He- 
brews had  reached  a  high  degree  of  civili- 


158  GENIUS  AND  DEGENERATION. 

zation.  Abstract  ethics  had  become  very 
much  developed,  and  any  example  of  great 
immorality  occurring  during  this  epoch  is 
proof  positive  of  atavism  or  degeneration. 
As  I  have  intimated  before,  many  of  the 
ancient  Hebrew  prophets,  who  were  un- 
questionably men  of  genius,  gave  evidences 
of  insanity;  notably  Jeremiah,  who  made  a 
long  journey  to  the  River  Euphrates,  where 
he  hid  a  linen  girdle.  He  returned  home, 
and  in  a  few  days  made  the  same  journey 
and  found  the  girdle  rotten  and  good  for 
nothing;  Ezekiel,  who  dug  a  hole  in  the 
wall  of  his  house,  through  which  he  re- 
moved his  household  goods,  instead  of 
through  the  door;  Hosea,  who  married  a 
prostitute,  because  God,  so  he  declared,  had 
told  him  so  to  do;  and  Isaiah,  who  stripped 
himself  naked  and  paraded  up  and  down 
in  sight  of  all  the  people.  King  Solomon, 
a  man  of  pre-eminent  genius,  was  mentally 
unbalanced.  The  "Song  of  Solomon"  shows 
very  clearly  that  he  was  a  victim  of  some 


GENIUS  AND  DEGENERATION.  159 

psychical  disorder,  sexual  in  its  character 
and  origin.  The  poems  of  Anacreon  are 
lascivious,  lustful,  and  essentially  carnal, 
and  history  informs  us  that  he  was  a  sexual 
pervert. 

Swinburne's  poems  show  clearly  the 
mental  bias  of  their  author,  who  is  de- 
scribed as  being  peculiar  and  eccentric. 
Many  of  the  men  of  genius  who  have 
assisted  in  making  the  history  of  the  world 
have  been  the  victims  of  epilepsy.  Julius 
Caesar,  military  leader,  statesman,  poli- 
tician, and  author,  was  an  epileptic.  Twice 
on  the  field  of  battle  he  was  stricken  down 
by  this  disorder.  On  one  occasion,  while 
seated  at  the  tribune,  he  was  unable  to  rise 
when  the  senators,  consuls,  and  praetors 
paid  him  a  visit  of  ceremony  and  honor. 
They  were  offended  at  his  seeming  lack  of 
respect,  and  retired,  showing  signs  of  anger. 
Caesar  returned  home,  stripped  off  his 
clothes,  and  offered  his  throat  to  be  cut  by 
anyone.  He  then  explained  his  conduct  to 


160  GENIUS  AND  DEGENERATION. 

the  senate,  saying  that  he  was  the  victim  of 
a  malady  which,  at  times,  rendered  him 
incapable  of  strnding.  During  the  attacks 
of  this  disorder  "he  felt  shocks  in  his  limbs, 
became  giddy,  and  at  last  lost  conscious- 
ness.1' Moliere  was  the  victim  of  epilepsy; 
so  also  was  Petrarch,  Flaubert,  Charles  V., 
Handel,  St.  Paul,  Peter  the  Great,  and 
Dostoievsky;  Paganini,  Mozart,  Schiller, 
Alfieri,  Pascal,  Richelieu,  Newton,  and 
Swift  \vere  the  victims  of  diseases  epilep- 
toid  in  character. 

Many  men  of  genius  have  suite  red  from 
spasmodic  and  choreic  movements,  notably 
Lenau,  Montesquieu,  BufTon,  Dr.  Johnson, 
Santeuil,  Crebillon,  Lombardini,  Thomas 
Campbell,  Carducci,  Napoleon,  and  Soc- 
rates. 

Suicide,  essentially  a  symptom  of  men- 
tal disorder,  has  hurried  many  a  man  of 
genius  out  into  the  unknown.  The  list 
begins  \vith  such  eminent  men  as  Zeno, 
Cleanthes,  Dionysius,  Lucan,  and  Stilpo, 


GENIUS  AND  DEGENERATION.  161 

and  contains  the  names  of  such  immortals 
as  Chatterton,  Blount,  Haydon,  Clive,  and 
David. 

Alcoholism  and  morphinism,  or  an  un- 
controlla.ble  desire  for  alcohol  or  opium 
in  some  form  or  other,  are  now  recognized 
as  evidences  of  degeneration.  Men  of 
genius,  both  in  the  Old  World  and  in  the 
New,  have  shown  this  form  of  degenera- 
tion. Says  Lombroso:  "Alexander  died 
after  having  emptied  ten  times  the  goblet 
of  Hercules,  and  it  was,  without  doubt,  in 
an  alcoholic  attack,  while  pursuing  naked 
the  infamous  Thais,  that  he  killed  his  dear- 
est friend.  Caesar  was  often  carried  home 
intoxicated  on  the  shoulders  of  his  soldiers. 
Neither  Socrates,  nor  Seneca,  nor  Alcibi- 
ades,  nor  Cato,  nor  Peter  the  Great  (nor 
his  wife  Catherine,  nor  his  daughter  Eliza- 
beth) were  remarkable  for  their  abstinence. 
One  recalls  Horace's  line,  'Narratur  et 
prisci  Cantonis  sape  mero  calulsse  virtus' 
Tiberius  Nero  was  called  by  the  Romans 


162  GENIUS  AND  DEGENERATION. 

Biberius  Mero.  Septimius  Severus  and 
Mahomet  II.  succumbed  to  drunkenness 
or  delirium  tremens" 

Among  the  men  and  women  of  genius 
of  the  Old  World  who  abused  the  use  of 
alcohol  and  opium,  were  Coleridge,  James 
Thomson,  Carew,  Sheridan,  Steele,  Addi- 
son,  Hoffman,  Charles  Lamb,  Madame  de 
Stael,  Burns,  Savage,  Alfred  de  Musset, 
Kleist,  Caracci,  Jan  Steen,  Morland  Tur- 
ner (the  painter),  Gerard  de  Nerval,  Hart- 
ley Coleridge,  Dussek,  Handel,  Gliick, 
Praga,  Rovani,  and  the  poet  Somerville. 
This  list  is  by  no  means  complete,  as  the 
well-informed  reader  may  see  at  a  glance; 
it  serves  to  show,  however,  how  very  often 
this  form  of  degeneration  makes  its  appear- 
ance in  men  of  genius. 

In  men  of  genius  the  moral  sense  is 
sometimes  obtunded,  if  not  altogether  ab- 
sent. Sallust,  Seneca,  and  Bacon  were  sus- 
pected felons.  Rousseau,  Byron,  Foscolo, 
and  Caresa  were  grossly  immoral,  while 


GENIUS  AND  DEGENERATION.  163 

Casanova,  the  gifted  mathematician,  was  a 
common  swindler.  Murat,  Rousseau,  Cle- 
ment, Diderot,  Praga,  and  Oscar  Wilde 
were  sexual  perverts. 

Genius,  like  insanity,  lives  in  a  world 
of  its  own,  hence  we  find  few,  if  any,  evi- 
dences of  human  affection  in  men  of  genius. 
Says  Lombroso:  "I  have  been  able  to  ob- 
serve men  of  genius  when  they  had  scarce 
reached  the  age  of  puberty;  they  did  not 
manifest  the  deep  aversions  of  moral  in- 
sanity, but  I  have  noticed  among  all  a 
strange  apathy  for  everything  which  does 
not  concern  them;  as  though,  plunged  in 
the  hypnotic  condition,  they  did  not  per- 
ceive the  troubles  of  others,  or  even  the 
most  pressing  needs  of  those  who  were 
dearest  to  them;  if  they  observed  them,  they 
grew  tender,  at  once  hastening  to  attend 
them;  but  it  was  a  fire  of  straw,  soon  ex- 
tinguished, and  it  gave  place  to  indifference 
and  weariness." 

This  emotional  anaesthesia  is  indicative 


164  GENIUS  AND  DEGENERATION. 

of  psychical  atavism,  and  is  an  unmistak- 
able evidence  of  degeneration.  Lombroso 
gives  a  long  list  of  the  men  of  genius  who 
were  celibates.  I  will  mention  a  few  of 
those  with  whom  the  English-speaking 
world  is  most  familiar:  Kant,  Newton, 
Pitt,  Fox,  Beethoven,  Galileo,  Descartes, 
Locke,  Spinoza,  Leibnitz,  Gray,  Dalton, 
Hume,  Gibbon,  Macaulay,  Lamb,  Ben- 
tham,  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  Copernicus, 
Reynolds,  Handel,  Mendelssohn,  Meyer- 
beer, Schopenhauer,  Camoe'ns,  and  Vol- 
taire. La  Bruyere  says  of  men  of  genius: 
"These  men  have  neither  ancestors  nor 
descendants;  they  themselves  form  their 
entire  posterity." 

There  is  a  form  of  mental  obliquity 
which  the  French  term  folie  du  doute.  It 
is  characterized  by  an  incertitude  in 
thought  coordination,  and  often  leads  its 
victims  into  the  perpetration  of  nonsensical 
and  useless  acts.  Men  of  genius  are  very 
frequently  afflicted  with  this  form  of  men- 


GENIUS  AND  DEGENERATION.  165 

tal  disorder.  Df.  Johnson,  who  was  a  suf- 
ferer from  folie  du  doute,  had  to  touch 
every  post  he  passed.  If  he  missed  one 
he  had  to  retrace  his  steps  and  touch  it. 
Again,  if  he  started  out  of  a  door  on  the 
wrong  foot  he  would  return  and  make 
another  attempt,  starting  out  on  the  foot 
which  he  considered  the  correct  one  to  use. 
Napoleon  counted  and  added  up  the  rows 
of  windows  in  every  street  through  which 
he  passed.  A  celebrated  statesman,  who  is 
a  personal  friend  of  the  writer,  can  never 
bear  to  place  his  feet  on  a  crack  in  the 
pavement  or  floor.  When  walking  he  will 
carefully  step  over  and  beyond  all  cracks 
or  crevices.  This  idiosyncracy  annoys  him 
greatly,  but  the  impulse  is  imperative,  and 
he  can  not  resist  it. 

Those  who  have  been  intimately  asso- 
ciated with  men  of  genius  have  noticed  that 
they  are  very  frequently  amnesic  or  "ab- 
sent-minded." Newton  once  tried  to  stuff 
his  niece's  ringer  into  the  bowl  of  his 


166  GENIUS  AND  DEGENERATION. 

lighted  pipe,  and  Rovelle  would  lecture  on 
some  subject  for  hours  at  a  time  and  then 
conclude  by  saying:  "But  this  is  one  of 
my  arcana,  which  I  tell  to  no  one."  One  of 
his  students  would  then  whisper  what  he 
had  just  said  into  his  ear,  and  Rovelle 
would  believe  that  his  pupil  "had  discov- 
ered the  arcanum  by  his  own  sagacity,  and 
would  beg  him  not  to  divulge  what  he  him- 
self had  just  told  to  two  hundred  persons." 

Lombroso  has  combed  history,  as  it 
were,  with  a  fine-tooth  comb,  and  very  few 
geniuses  have  escaped  his  notice.  This  pa- 
per, so  far,  is  hardly  more  than  a  review  of 
his  extraordinarily  comprehensive  work; 
therefore,  I  will  conclude  this  portion  of  it 
with  a  list  of  men  of  genius,  their  profes- 
sions, and  their  evidences  of  degeneration, 
as  gathered  from  his  book: 

Carlo  Dolce,  painter,  religious  mono- 
mania. 

Bacon,  philosopher,  megalomania, 
moral  anaesthesia. 


GENIUS  AND  DEGENERATION.  167 

Balzac,  writer,  masked  epilepsy,  meg- 
alomania. 

Caesar,  soldier,  writer,  epilepsy. 

Beethoven,  musician,  amnesia,  melan- 
cholia. 

Cowper,  writer,  melancholia. 

Chateaubriand,  writer,  chorea. 

Alexander  the  Great,  soldier,  alcohol- 
ism. 

Moliere,  dramatist,  epilepsy,  phthisis 
pulmonalis. 

Lamb,  writer,  alcoholism,  melancholia, 
acute  mania. 

Mozart,  musician,  epilepsy,  hallucina- 
tions. 

Heine,  writer,  melancholia,  spinal  dis- 
ease. 

Dr.  Johnson,  writer,  chorea,  folie  du 
doute. 

Malibran,  epilepsy. 

Newton,  philosopher,  amnesia. 

Cavour,  statesman,  philosopher,  suicid- 
al impulse. 


168  GENIUS  AND  DEGENERATION. 

Ampere,  mathematician,  amnesia. 

Thomas  Campbell,  writer,  chorea. 

Blake,  painter,  hallucinations. 

Chopin,  musician,  melancholia. 

Coleridge,  writer,  alcoholism,  morphin- 
ism. 

Donizetti,  musician,  moral  anaesthesia. 

Lenau,  writer,  melancholia. 

Mahomet,  theologian,  epilepsy. 

Manzoni,  statesman,  folie  du  doute. 

Haller,  writer,  hallucinations. 

Dupuytren,  surgeon,  suicidal  impulse. 

Paganini,  musician,  epilepsy. 

Handel,  musician,  epilepsy. 

Schiller,  writer,  epilepsy. 

Richelieu,  statesman,  epilepsy. 

Praga,  writer,  alcoholism,  sexual  per- 
version. 

Tasso,  writer,  alcoholism,  melancholia. 

Savonarola,   theologian,   hallucinations. 

Luther,  theologian,  hallucinations. 

Schopenhauer,  philosopher,  melan- 
cholia, omniphobia. 


GENIUS  AND  DEGENERATION.  169 

Gogol,  writer,  melancholia,  tabes  dor- 
salis. 

Lazaretti,  theologian,  hallucinations. 

Mallarme,  writer,  suicidal  impulse. 

Dostoieffsky,  writer,  epilepsy. 

Napoleon,  soldier,  statesman,  folie  du 
doute,  epilepsy. 

Comte,  philosopher,  hallucinations. 

Pascal,  philosopher,  epilepsy. 

Poushkin,  writer,  megalomania. 

Renan,  philosopher,  folie  du  doute. 

Swift,  writer,  paresis. 

Socrates,  philosopher,  chorea. 

Schumann,  musician,  paresis. 

Shelley,  writer,  hallucinations. 

Bunyan,  writer,  hallucinations. 

Swedenborg,  theologian,  hallucina- 
tions. 

Loyola,  theologian,  hallucinations. 

J.  S.  Mill,  writer,  suicidal  impulse. 

Linnaeus,  botanist,  paresis. 

The  reader  will  observe  that  I  have 
made  use  of  the  comprehensive  word, 


170  GENIUS  AND  DEGENERATION. 

writer,  to  designate  all  kinds  of  literary 
work  except  theology  and  philosophy.  The 
above  list  is  by  no  means  complete,  and  only 
contains  the  names  of  those  geniuses  with 
whom  the  world  is  well  acquainted. 

When  we  come  to  the  geniuses  of  the 
New  World,  we  find  that,  though  few  in 
number,  they,  nevertheless,  show  erraticism 
and  degeneration.  Poe  was  undoubtedly  a 
man  of  great  genius,  and  his  degeneration 
was  indicated  by  his  excessive  use  of  alco- 
hol. Aaron  Burr  was  the  victim  of  moral 
anesthesia,  and  Jefferson  was  pseudo-epi- 
leptic and  neurasthenic.  Randolph  was  a 
man  of  marked  eccentricity,  and  Benedict 
Arnold  was,  morally,  anaesthetic.  Daniel 
Webster  was  addicted  to  an  over-indul- 
gence in  alcohol,  likewise  Thomas  Mar- 
shall and  the  elder  Booth.  Booth  also  had 
attacks  of  acute  mania.  His  son  Edwin 
had  paresis;  so  also  had  John  McCullough, 
John  T.  Raymond,  and  Bartley  Campbell. 
A  distinguished  statesman  and  politician, 


GENIUS  AND  DEGENERATION.  171 

and  a  man  who  stands  high  in  the  councils 
of  the  nation,  has,  for  a  number  of  years, 
given  evidence  of  mental  obliquity  by  his 
uncontrollable  desire  for  alcohol.  No 
power,  outside  of  bodily  restraint,  can  con- 
trol him  and  keep  him  from  indulging  his 
appetite  for  alcohol  when  this  desire  seizes 
him.  One  of  the  most  noted  poets  of  to- 
day, whose  verses  stir  the  heart  with  their 
pathos  and  bring  smiles  to  the  gravest  coun- 
tenances with  their  humor,  was,  for  a  num- 
ber of  years  (and  still  is,  so  I  have  been 
told) ,  an  inordinate  user  of  alcohol. 

Robert  Ingersoll  was  undoubtedly  a 
man  of  genius  and  of  considerable  original- 
ity, and  a  close  study  of  his  writings  shows 
conclusively  his  mental  eccentricity.  Judg- 
ing wholly  from  his  printed  utterances,  Mr. 
Ingersoll  was  only  a  superficial  scientist  and 
mediocre  scholar.  His  power  lay  in  his  won- 
derful word  imagery,  and  his  intricately 
constructed  verbal  arabesques.  He  was  a 
verbal  symbolist.  Symbolism,  wherever 


172  GENIUS  AND  DEGENERATION. 

found,  and  in  whatever  art,  if  carried  to  any 
extent,  must  necessarily  be  an  evidence  of 
atavism,  consequently  of  degeneration. 

Thomas  Paine  gave  evidences  of  a  lack 
of  mental  equipoise.  We  find  scattered 
throughout  his  works  the  most  brilliant,  ir- 
refutable, and  logical  truths  side  by  side 
with  the  most  inane,  illogical,  and  stolid 
crudities.  Among  other  men  of  genius 
who  showed  signs  of  degeneration  we  may 
include  Alexander  Stevens,  Joel  Hart, 
Adams,  Train,  Breckenridge,  Webster, 
Elaine,  Van  Buren,  Houston,  Grant,  Haw- 
thorne, Bartholow,  Walt  Whitman.  We 
must  not  confound  genius  and  talent — the 
two  are  widely  different.  Genius  is  essen- 
tially original  and  spontaneous,  while  tal- 
ent is  to  some  extent  acquired.  Genius  is  a 
quasi  abnormality,  and  one  for  which  the 
world  should  be  devoutly  grateful.  Psy- 
chos, in  the  case  of  genius,  is  not  uniformly 
developed,  one  part,  being  more  favored 
than  the  others,  absorbs  and  uses  more  than 


GENIUS  AND  DEGENERATION.  173 

its  share  of  that  element,  whatsoever  it  be, 
which  goes  to  make  up  intellectuality, 
hence  the  less  favored  or  less  acquisitive 
parts  show  degeneration. 


THE    EFFECT   OF    FEMALE    SUF- 
FRAGE ON  POSTERITY. 

The  greatest,  best,  and  highest  law  of 
higher  civilization  is  that  which  declares 
that  man  should  strive  to  benefit,  not  him- 
self alone,  but  his  posterity. 

I.  THE  ORIGIN  OF  THE  MATRIARCH  ATE. 

In  the  very  beginning  woman  was,  by 
function,  a  mother;  by  virtue  of  her  sur- 
roundings, a  housewife.  Man  was  then,  as 
now,  the  active,  dominant  factor  in  those 
affairs  outside  the  immediate  pale  of  the 
fireside.  Life  was  collective;  "communal 
was  the  habitation,  and  communal  the 
wives  with  the  children;  the  men  pursued 
the  same  prey,  and  devoured  it  together 
after  the  manner  of  wolves;  all  felt,  all 
thought,  all  acted  in  concert."  Primitive 
men  were  like  their  simian  ancestors,  which 
never  paired,  and  which  roamed  through 
the  forest  in  bands  and  troops.  This  collec- 
tivism is  plainly  noticeable  in  certain  races 


176  FEMALE  SUFFRAGE. 

of  primitive  folks  which  are  yet  in  exist- 
ence, notably  the  autochthons  of  the  Aleu- 
tian Islands.  Huddled  together  in  their 
communal  kachims,  naked,  without  any 
thought  of  immodesty,  men,  women,  and 
children  share  the  same  fire  and  eat  from 
the  same  pot.  They  recognize  no  immoral- 
ity in  the  fact  of  the  father  cohabiting  with 
his  daughter — one  of  them  naively  remark- 
ing to  Langsdorf,  who  reproached  him  for 
having  committed  this  crime :  "Why  not? 
the  otters  do  it!"  Later  in  life  the  men  and 
women  mate ;  but  even  then  there  is  no  sanc- 
tity in  the  marriage  tie,  for  the  Aleutian 
will  freely  offer  his  wife  to  the  stranger 
within  his  gates,  and  will  consider  it  an  in- 
sult if  he  refuses  to  enjoy  her  company. 
"As  with  many  savages  and  half-civilized 
people,  the  man  who  would  not  offer  his 
guest  the  hospitality  of  the  conjugal  couch, 
or  the  company  of  his  best-looking  daugh- 
ter, would  be  considered  an  ill-bred  per- 


FEMALE  SUFFRAGE.  177 

This  laxity  in  sexual  relations  was,  at 
first,  common  to  all  races  of  primitive  men, 
but,  after  a  time,  there  arose  certain  influ- 
ences which  modified,  to  a  certain  extent, 
this  free  and  indiscriminate  intercourse. 
Frequent  wars  must  have  occurred  between 
hostile  tribes  of  primitive  men,  during 
which,  some  of  them  (physically  or  numer- 
ically weaker  than  their  opponents)  must 
have  been  repeatedly  vanquished,  and 
many  of  their  females  captured,  for,  in 
those  old  days  (like  those  of  more  recent 
times,  for  that  matter)  the  women  were  the 
prizes  for  which  the  men  fought. 

Under  circumstances  like  these,  the  few 
remaining  women  must  have  served  as 
wives  for  all  the  men  of  the  tribe;  and,  in 
this  manner  polyandry  had  its  inception. 
Polyandry  gives  women  certain  privileges 
which  monandry  denies,  and  she  is  not  slow 
to  seize  on  these  prerogatives,  and  to  use 
them  in  the  furtherance  of  her  own  wel- 
fare. Polyandry,  originating  from  any 


178  FEMALE  SUFFRAGE. 

cause  whatever,  will  always  end  in  the  es- 
tablishment of  a  matriarchate,  in  which  the 
women  are  either  directly  or  indirectly  at 
the  head  of  the  government. 

There  are  several  matriarchates  still  ex- 
tant in  the  world,  and  one  of  the  best 
known,  as  well  as  the  most  advanced,  as  far 
as  civilization  and  culture  are  concerned,  is 
that  of  the  Nairs,  a  people  of  India  inhab- 
iting that  portion  of  the  country  lying  be- 
tween Cape  Comorin  and  Mangalore,  and 
the  Ghats  and  the  Indian  Ocean. 

The  Nairs  are  described  as  being  the 
handsomest  people  in  the  world;  the  mer 
being  tall,  sinewy  and  extraordinarily  agile 
while  the  women  are  slender  and  graceful 
with  perfectly  modeled  figures.  The  Nail 
girl  is  carefully  chaperoned  until  she  ar 
rives  at  a  marriageable  age,  say,  fourteer 
or  fifteen  years,  at  which  time  some  com 
plaisant  individual  is  selected,  who  goe: 
through  the  marriage  ceremony  with  her 
As  soon  as  the  groom  ties  the  tali,  or  mar 


FEMALE  SUFFRAGE.  179 

riage  cord,  about  her  neck,  he  is  feasted 
and  is  then  dismissed;  the  wife  must  never 
again  speak  to,  or  even  look  at,  her  hus- 
band. Once  safely  wedded,  the  girl  be- 
comes emancipated,  and  can  receive  the  at- 
tentions of  as  many  men  as  she  may  elect, 
though,  I  am  informed,  it  is  not  considered 
fashionable,  at  present,  to  have  more  than 
seven  husbands,  one  for  each  day  of  the 
week. 

Of  no  importance  heretofore,  after  her 
farcical  marriage  the  Nair  woman  at  once 
becomes  a  power  in  the  councils  of  the  na- 
tion; as  a  matter  of  course,  the  higher  her 
lovers  the  higher  her  rank  becomes  and  the 
greater  her  influence.  Here  is  female  suf- 
frage in  its  primitive  form,  brought  about, 
it  is  true,  by  environment,  and  not  by  elec- 
tive franchise. 

As  far  as  the  children  are  concerned, 
the  power  of  the  mother  is  absolute;  for 
they  know  no  father,  the  maternal  uncle 
standing  in  his  stead.  Property,  both  per- 


180  FEMALE  SUFFRAGE. 

sonal  and  real,  is  vested  in  the  woman ;  she 
is  the  mistress  and  the  ruler.  "The  mother 
reigns  and  governs;  she  has  her  eldest 
daughter  for  prime  minister  in  her  house- 
hold, through  whom  all  orders  are  trans- 
mitted to  her  little  world.  Formerly,  in 
grand  ceremonials,  the  reigning  prince 
himself  yielded  precedence  to  his  eldest 
daughter,  and,  of  course,  recognized  still 
more  humbly  the  priority  of  his  mother, 
before  whom  he  did  not  venture  to  seat 
himself  until  she  had  given  him  permis- 
sion. Such  was  the  rule  from  the  palace  to 
the  humblest  dwelling  of  a  Nair." 

During  the  past  fifty  years,  these  people 
have  made  rapid  strides  toward  civiliza- 
tion, monandry  and  monogamy  taking  the 
places  of  polyandry  and  polygamy,  and 
fifty  or  a  hundred  years  hence,  this  matri- 
archate  will,  in  all  probability,  entirely  dis- 
appear. 

I  have  demonstrated,  I  think,  clearly 
and  distinctly,  that  matriarchy,  or  female 


FEMALE  SUFFRAGE.  181 

government,  is  neither  new  nor  advanced 
thought,  but  that  it  is  as  old,  almost,  as  the 
human  race;  that  the  "New  Woman"  was 
born  many  thousands  of  years  ago,  and  that 
her  autotype,  in  some  respects,  is  to  be 
found  to-day  in  Mangalore!  A  return  to 
matriarchy  at  the  present  time  would  be 
distinctly  and  emphatically  and  essentially 
retrograde  in  every  particular.  The  right 
to  vote  carries  with  it  the  right  to  hold  of- 
fice, and  if  women  are  granted  the  privilege 
of  suffrage,  they  must  also  be  given  the 
right  to  govern.  Now  let  us  see  if  we  can- 
not find  a  reason  for  this  atavistic  desire 
(matriarchy)  in  the  physical  and  psychical 
histories  of  its  foremost  advocates.  I  will 
discuss  this  question  in  Part  II  of  this  pa- 
per. 

II.    THE  VIRAGINT. 
There  are  two  kinds  of  genius.    The 
first  is  progressive  genius,  which  always 
enunciates  new  and  original  matter  of  ma- 


182  FEMALE  SUFFRAGE. 

terial  benefit  to  the  human  race,  and  which 
is,  consequently,  non-atavistic;  the  second 
is  atavistic  or  retrogressive  genius,  which  is 
imitative,  and  which  always  enunciates 
dead  and  obsolete  matter  long  since  aban- 
doned and  thrown  aside  as  being  utterly 
useless.  The  doctrines  of  communism  and 
of  nihilism  are  the  products  of  retrogres- 
sive genius  and  are  clearly  atavistic,  inas- 
much as  they  are  a  reversion  to  the  mental 
habitudes  of  our  savage  ancestors.  The 
doctrines  of  the  matriarchate  are  likewise 
degenerate  beliefs,  and,  if  held  by  any  civi- 
lized being  of  to-day,  are  evidences  of  psy- 
chic atavism. 

Atavism  invariably  attacks  the  weak; 
and  individuals  of  neurasthenic  type  are 
more  frequently  its  victims  than  are  any 
other  class  of  people.  Especially  is  this 
true  in  the  case  of  those  who  suffer  from 
psychical  atavism. 

The  woman  of  to-day  who  believes  in 
and  inculcates  the  doctrines  of  matriarchy, 


FEMALE  SUFFRAGE.  183 

doctrines  which  have  been,  as  far  as  the 
civilized  world  is  concerned,  thrown  aside 
and  abandoned  these  many  hundred  years, 
is  as  much  the  victim  of  psychic  atavism  as 
was  Alice  Mitchell,  who  slew  Freda  Ward 
in  Memphis  several  years  ago,  and  who  was 
justly  declared  a  viragint  by  the  court  that 
tried  her. 

Without  entering  into  the  truthfulness 
or  falseness  of  the  theory  advanced  by  me 
elsewhere  in  this  book,  in  regard  to  the 
primal  cause  of  psychic  hermaphroditism, 
which  I  attributed  and  do  still  attribute  to 
psychic  atavism,  I  think  that  I  am  perfect- 
ly safe  in  asserting  that  every  woman  who 
has  been  at  all  prominent  in  advancing  the 
cause  of  equal  rights  in  its  entirety,  has 
either  given  evidences  or  masculo-feminin- 
ity  (viraginity),  or  has  shown,  conclusive- 
ly, that  she  was  the  victim  of  psycho-sexual 
aberrancy.  Moreover,  the  history  of  every 
viragint  of  any  note  in  the  history  of  the 


184  FEMALE  SUFFRAGE. 

world  shows  that  they  were  either  physic- 
ally or  psychically  degenerate,  or  both. 

Jeanne  d'Arc  was  the  victim  of  hystero- 
epilepsy,  while  Catharine  the  Great  was  a 
dipsomaniac,  and  a  creature  of  unbounded 
and  inordinate  sensuality.  Messalina,  the 
depraved  wife  of  Claudius,  a  woman  of 
masculine  type,  whose  very  form  embodied 
and  shadowed  forth  the  regnant  idea  of  her 
mind — absolute  and  utter  rulership — was  a 
woman  of  such  gross  carnality,  that  her 
lecherous  conduct  shocked  even  the  de- 
praved courtiers  of  her  lewd  and  salacious 
court.  The  side-lights  of  history,  as  Doug- 
las Campbell  has  so  cleverly  pointed  out  in 
his  "Puritan  in  Holland,  England,  and 
America,"  declare  that  there  is  every  rea- 
son to  believe  that  the  Virgin  Queen,  Eliz- 
abeth of  England,  was  not  such  a  pure  and 
unspotted  virgin  as  her  admirers  make  her 
out  to  be.  Sir  Robert  Cecil  says  of  her 
that  "she  was  more  man  than  woman," 
while  history  shows  conclusively  that  she 


FEMALE  SUFFRAGE.  185 

was  a  pronounced  viragint,  with  a  slight 
tendency  toward  megalomania.  In  a  recent 
letter  to  me,  Mr.  George  H.  Yeaman,  ex- 
Minister  to  Denmark,  writes  as  follows: 
"Whether  it  be  the  relation  of  cause  and  ef- 
fect, or  only  what  logicians  call  a  "mere 
coincidence,"  the  fact  remains  that  in 
Rome,  Russia,  France,  and  England,  polit- 
ical corruption,  cruelty  of  government, 
sexual  immorality — nay,  downright,  impu- 
dent, open,  boastful  indecency — have  cul- 
minated, for  the  most  part,  in  the  eras  of 
the  influence  of  viragints  on  government  or 
over  governors." 

Viraginity  has  many  phases.  We  see  a 
mild  form  of  it  in  the  tom-boy  who  aban- 
dons her  dolls  and  female  companions  for 
the  marbles  and  masculine  sports  of  her  boy 
acquaintances.  In  the  loud-talking,  long- 
stepping,  slang-using  young  woman  we  see 
another  form;  while  the  square-shouldered, 
stolid,  cold,  unemotional,  unfeminine  an- 
droid (for  she  has  the  normal  human  form, 


186  FEMALE  SUFFRAGE. 

without  the  normal  human  psychos)  is  yet 
another.  The  most  aggravated  form  of 
viraginity  is  that  known  as  homo-sexuality; 
with  this  form,  however,  this  paper  has 
nothing  to  do. 

Another  form  of  viraginity  is  technical- 
ly known  as  gynandry,  and  may  be  defined 
as  follows :  A  victim  of  gynandry  not  only 
has  the  feelings  and  desires  of  a  man,  but 
also  the  skeletal  form,  features,  voice,  etc., 
so  that  the  individual  approaches  the  oppo- 
site sex  anthropologically,  and  in  more  than 
a  psycho-sexual  way  (Krafft-Ebing). 

As  it  is  probable  that  this  form  of  vira- 
ginity is  sometimes  acquired  to  a  certain  ex- 
tent, and  that,  too,  very  quickly,  when  a 
woman  is  placed  among  the  proper  sur- 
roundings, I  shall  give  the  case  of  Sarolta, 
Countess  V.,  one  of  the  most  remarkable  in- 
stances of  gynandry  on  record.  If  this  wo- 
man, when  a  child,  had  been  treated  as 
a  girl,  she  would  in  all  probability  have 
gone  through  life  as  a  woman,  for  she  was 


FEMALE  SUFFRAGE.  187 

born  a  female  in  every  sense  of  the  word. 
At  a  very  early  age,  however,  her  father, 
who  was  an  exceedingly  eccentric  noble- 
man, dressed  her  in  boy's  clothing,  called 
her  Sandor,  and  taught  her  boyish  games 
and  sports. 

"Sarolta-Sandor  remained  under  her 
father's  influence  till  her  twelfth  year,  and 
then  came  under  the  care  of  her  maternal 
grandmother,  in  Dresden,  by  whom,  when 
the  masculine  play  became  too  obvious,  she 
was  placed  in  an  institute  and  made  to  wear 
female  attire.  At  thirteen  she  had  a  love 
relation  with  an  English  girl,  to  whom  she 
represented  herself  as  a  boy,  and  ran  away 
with  her.  She  was  finally  returned  to  her 
mother,  who  could  do  nothing  with  her, 
and  was  forced  to  allow  her  to  resume  the 
name  of  Sandor  and  to  put  on  boy's  clothes. 
She  accompanied  her  father  on  long  jour- 
neys, always  as  a  young  gentleman ;  she  be- 
came a  roue,  frequenting  brothels  and 
cafes  and  often  becoming  intoxicated.  All 


188  FEMALE  SUFFRAGE. 

of  her  sports  were  masculine;  so  were  her 
tastes  and  so  were  her  desires.  She  had 
many  love  affairs  with  women,  always 
skillfully  hiding  the  fact  that  she  herself 
was  a  woman.  She  even  carried  her  mas- 
querade so  far  as  to  enter  into  matrimony 
with  the  daughter  of  a  distinguished  offi- 
cial and  to  live  with  her  for  some  time  be- 
fore the  imposition  was  discovered."  The 
woman  whom  Sandor  married  is  described 
as  being  "a  girl  of  incredible  simplicity  and 
innocence;"  in  sooth,  she  must  have  been! 
Notwithstanding  this  woman's  passion 
for  those  of  her  own  sex,  she  distinctly 
states  that  in  her  thirteenth  year  she  expe- 
rienced normal  sexual  desire.  Her  en- 
vironments, however,  had  been  those  of  a 
male  instead  of  a  female,  consequently  her 
psychical  weakness,  occasioned  by  degenera- 
tion inherited  from  an  eccentric  father, 
turned  her  into  the  gulf  of  viraginity,  from 
which  she  at  last  emerged,  a  victim  of  com- 
plete gynandry.  I  have  given  this  instance 


FEMALE  SUFFRAGE.  189 

more  prominence  than  it  really  deserves, 
simply  because  I  wish  to  call  attention  to 
the  fact  that  environment  is  one  of  the  great 
factors  in  evolutionary  development. 

Many  women  of  to-day  who  are  in 
favor  of  female  suffrage  are  influenced  by 
a  single  idea;  they  have  some  great  reform 
in  view,  such  as  the  establishment  of  uni- 
versal temperance,  or  the  elevation  of  social 
morals.  Suffrage  in  its  entirety,  that  suf- 
frage which  will  give  them  a  share  in  the 
government,  is  not  desired  by  them;  they 
do  not  belong  to  the  class  of  viragints,  un- 
sexed  individuals,  whose  main  object  is  the 
establishment  of  a  matriarchate. 

Woman  is  a  creature  of  the  emotions,  of 
impulses,  of  sentiment,  and  of  feeling;  in 
her  the  logical  faculty  is  subordinate.  She 
is  influenced  by  the  object  immediately  in 
view,  and  does  not  hesitate  to  form  a  judg- 
ment which  is  based  on  no  other  grounds 
save  those  of  intuition.  Logical  men  look 
beyond  the  immediate  effects  of  an  action 


190  FEMALE  SUFFRAGE. 

and  predicate  its  results  on  posterity.  The 
percepts  and  recepts  which  form  the  con- 
cept of  equal  rights  also  embody  an  eject 
which,  though  conjectural,  is  yet  capable  of 
logical  demonstration,  and  which  declares 
that  the  final  and  ultimate  effect  of  female 
suffrage  on  posterity  would  be  exceedingly 
harmful. 

We  have  seen  that  the  pronounced  ad- 
vocates and  chief  promoters  of  equal  rights 
are  probably  viragints — individuals  who 
plainly  show  that  they  are  psychically  ab- 
normal; furthermore,  we  have  seen  that 
the  abnormality  is  occasioned  by  degenera- 
tion, either  acquired  or  inherent,  in  the  in- 
dividual. Now  let  us  see,  if  the  right  of 
female  suffrage  were  allowed,  what  effect 
it  would  produce  on  the  present  environ- 
ment of  the  woman  of  to-day,  and,  if  any, 
what  effect  this  changed  environment 
would  have  on  the  psychical  habitudes  of 
the  woman  of  the  future.  This  portion  of 


FEMALE  SUFFRAGE.  191 

the  subject  will  be  discussed  in  Part  III  of 
this  paper. 

III.  THE  DECADENCE. 
It  is  conceded  that  man  completed  his 
cycle  of  physical  development  many  thou- 
sands of  years  ago.  Since  his  evolution 
from  his  pithecoid  ancestor  the  forces  of 
nature  have  been  at  work  evolving  man's 
psychical  being.  Now,  man's  psychical 
being  is  intimately  connected  with,  and  de- 
pendent upon,  his  physical  being;  there- 
fore it  follows  that  degeneration  of  his  phy- 
sical organism  will  necessarily  engender 
psychical  degeneration  also.  Hence,  if  I 
can  prove  that  woman,  by  leading  a  life  in 
which  her  present  environments  are 
changed,  produces  physical  degeneration, 
it  will  naturally  follow  that  psychical  de- 
generation will  also  accrue;  and,  since  one 
of  the  invariable  results  of  degeneration, 
both  physical  and  psychical,  is  atavism,  the 
phenomenon  of  a  social  revolution  in 


192  FEMALE  SUFFRAGE. 

which  the  present  form  of  government  will 
be  overthrown  and  a  matriarchate  estab- 
lished in  its  stead,  will  be  not  a  possibility 
of  the  future,  but  a  probability. 

That  the  leaders  of  this  movement  in 
favor  of  equal  rights  look  for  such  a  result, 
I  have  not  the  slightest  doubt;  for,  not 
many  days  ago,  Susan  B.  Anthony  stood  be- 
side the  chair  of  a  circuit  judge  in  one  of 
our  courthouses  and,  before  taking  her 
seat,  remarked  that  there  were  those  in  her 
audience  who  doubtless  thought  "that  she 
was  guilty  of  presumption  and  usurpa- 
tion" (in  taking  the  judge's  chair),  but  that 
there  would  come  a  day  when  they  would 
no  longer  think  so! 

Statistics  show  clearly  and  conclusively 
that  there  is  an  alarming  increase  of  suicide 
and  insanity  among  women,  and  I  attribute 
this  wholly  to  the  already  changed  environ- 
ment of  our  women.  As  the  matter  stands 
they  have  already  too  much  liberty.  The 
restraining  influences  which  formerly  made 


FEMALE  SUFFRAGE.  193 

woman  peculiarly  a  housewife  have  been, 
in  a  measure,  removed,  and  woman  mixes 
freely  with  the  world.  Any  new  duty 
added  to  woman  as  a  member  of  society 
would  modify  her  environment  to  some  ex- 
tent and  call  for  increased  nervous  activity. 
When  a  duty  like  suffrage  is  added  the 
change  in  her  environment  must  necessar- 
ily be  marked  and  radical,  with  great  de- 
mands for  an  increased  activity.  The  right 
of  suffrage  would,  unquestionably,  very 
materially  change  the  environment  of 
woman  at  the  present  time,  and  would 
entail  new  and  additional  desires  and  emo- 
tions which  would  be  other  and  most  ex- 
hausting draughts  on  her  nervous  organ- 
ism. 

The  effects  of  degeneration  are  slow  in 
making  their  appearance,  yet  they  are  ex- 
ceedingly certain.  The  longer  woman 
lived  amid  surroundings  calling  for  in- 
creased nervous  expenditure,  the  greater 
would  be  the  effects  of  the  accruing  degen- 


194  FEMALE  SUFFRAGE. 

eration  on  her  posterity.  "Periods  of  mor- 
al decadence  in  the  life  of  a  people  are  al- 
ways contemporaneous  with  times  of  effem- 
inacy, sensuality,  and  luxury.  These  condi- 
tions can  only  be  conceived  as  occurring 
with  increased  demands  on  the  nervous 
system,  which  must  meet  these  require- 
ments. As  a  result  of  increase  of  nervous- 
ness there  is  increase  of  sensuality,  and 
since  this  leads  to  excess  among  the  masses 
it  undermines  the  foundations  of  society — 
the  morality  and  purity  of  family  life" 
(Krafft-Ebing). 

The  inherited  psychical  habitudes, 
handed  down  through  hundreds  and  thou- 
sands of  years,  would  prevent  the  immedi- 
ate destruction  of  that  ethical  purity  for 
which  woman  is  noted,  and  in  the  posses- 
sion of  which  she  stands  so  far  above  man. 
I  do  not  think  that  this  ethical  purity  would 
be  lost  in  a  day  or  a  year,  or  a  hundred 
years,  for  that  matter;  yet  there  would  come 
a  time  when  the  morality  of  to-day  would 


FEMALE  SUFFRAGE.  195 

be  utterly  lost,  and  society  would  sink  into 
some  such  state  of  existence  as  we  now  find 
en  evidence  among  the  Nairs.  In  support 
of  this  proposition  I  have  only  to  instance 
the  doctrines  promulgated  by  some  of  the 
most  advanced  advocates  of  equal  rights. 
The  "free  love"  of  some  advanced  women, 
I  take  it,  is  but  the  free  choice  doctrine  in 
vogue  among  the  Nairs  and  kindred  races 
of  people. 

John  Noyes,  of  the  Oneida  Commun- 
ity, where  equal  rights  were  observed, 
preached  the  same  doctrines.  It  is  true  that 
the  people  who  advocate  such  unethical 
principles  are  degenerate  individuals,  psy- 
chical atavists,  yet  they  faithfully  foreshad- 
ow in  their  own  persons  that  which  would 
be  common  to  all  men  and  women  at  some 
time  in  the  future,  if  equal  rights  were  al- 
lowed, and  carried  out  in  their  entirety. 

This  is  an  era  of  luxury,  and  it  is  a  uni- 
versally acknowledged  fact  that  luxury  is 
one  of  the  prime  factors  in  the  production 


196  FEMALE  SUFFRAGE. 

of  degeneration.  We  see  forms  and  phases 
of  degeneration  thickly  scattered  through- 
out all  circles  of  society,  in  the  plays  which 
\ve  see  performed  in  our  theaters,  and  in 
the  books  and  papers  published  daily 
throughout  the  land.  The  greater  portion 
of  the  clientele  of  the  alienist  and  neurolo- 
ogist  is  made  up  of  women  who  are  suffer- 
ing with  neurotic  troubles,  generally  of  a 
psychopathic  nature.  The  number  of  vira- 
gints,  gynandrists,  androgynes,  and  other 
psycho-sexual  aberrants  of  the  feminine 
gender  is  very  large  indeed. 

It  is  folly  to  deny  the  fact  that  the  right 
of  female  suffrage  will  make  no  change  in 
the  environment  of  woman.  The  New  Wo- 
man glories  in  the  fact,  that  the  era  which 
she  hopes  to  inaugurate  will  introduce  her 
into  a  new  world.  Not  satisfied  with  the 
liberty  she  now  enjoys,  and  which  is  prov- 
ing to  be  exceedingly  harmful  to  her  in 
more  ways  than  one,  she  longs  for  more 
freedom,  a  broader  field  of  action.  If  na- 


FEMALE  SUFFRAGE.  197 

ture  provided  men  and  women  with  an  in- 
exhaustible supply  of  nervous  energy,  they 
might  set  aside  physical  laws,  and  burn  the 
candle  at  both  ends  without  any  fear  of  its 
being  burned  up.  Nature  furnishes  each 
individual  with  just  so  much  nervous  force 
and  no  more ;  moreover,  she  holds  every  one 
strictly  accountable  for  every  portion  of 
nervous  energy  which  he  or  she  may  squan- 
der; therefore,  it  behooves  us  to  build  our 
causeway  with  exceeding  care,  otherwise 
we  will  leave  a  chasm  which  will  engulf 
posterity. 

The  baneful  effects  resulting  from  fe- 
male suffrage  will  not  be  seen  to-morrow, 
or  next  week,  or  week  after  next,  or  next 
month,  or  next  year,  or  a  hundred  years 
hence,  perhaps.  It  is  not  a  question  of  our 
day  and  generation ;  it  is  a  matter  involving 
posterity.  The  simple  right  to  vote  carries 
with  it  no  immediate  danger,  the  danger 
comes  afterward;  probably  many  years 
after  the  establishment  of  female  suffrage, 


198  FEMALE  SUFFRAGE. 

when  woman,  owing  to  her  increased  de- 
generation, gives  free  rein  to  her  atavistic 
tendencies,  and  hurries  ever  backward  to- 
ward the  savage  state  of  her  barbarian  an- 
cestors. I  see,  in  the  establishment  of  equal 
rights,  the  first  step  toward  that  abyss  of 
immoral  horrors  so  repugnant  to  our  culti- 
vated ethical  tastes  —  the  matriarchate. 
Sunk  as  low  as  this,  civilized  man  will  sink 
still  lower — to  the  communal  kachims  of 
the  Aleutian  Islanders. 


IS  IT  THE  BEGINNING  OF  THE 
END? 

When  we  come  to  examine  the  history 
of  the  world  we  find  evidence  that  certain 
nations  have,  at  times,  reached  a  high  state 
of  prosperity,  and  have  then  degenerated 
to  such  a  degree  that  they  have  either 
passed  entirely  out  of  existence,  or  have 
lapsed  into  a  state  of  semi-barbarity.  This 
has  generally  been  brought  about  by  con- 
quest, but  the  races  conquered  had  first  be- 
come enfeebled  by  their  habitudes  of 
thought  and  manner  of  living.  It  is  a  well- 
established  fact  that  luxury  brings  de- 
bauchery, and  that  debauchery  occasions 
degeneration.  All  nations  that  have,  here- 
tofore, reached  the  zenith  of  their  prosper- 
ity, have  been  engulfed,  at  some  time  or 
other,  in  the  maelstrom  of  luxurious  habits, 
and  have  fallen  under  the  lethal  influence 
of  a  degeneration  occasioned  solely  by  de- 
bauchery; for  the  luxury  and  debauchery 


200  A  VITAL  QUESTION. 

of  one  class  brought  increased  poverty  on, 
as  well  as  excess  in,  other  classes,  and  pov- 
erty and  excess  are  prominent  factors  in  the 
production  of  degeneration,  as  we  shall  see 
further  on  in  this  paper.  Says  the  brilliant 
author  of  "Psychopathia  Sexualis," 
Krafft-Ebing:  "Periods  of  moral  deca- 
dence in  the  life  of  a  people  are  always  con- 
temporaneous with  times  of  effeminacy, 
sensuality,  and  luxury.  These  conditions 
can  only  be  conceived  as  occurring  with 
increased  demands  upon  the  nervous  sys- 
tem, which  must  meet  these  requirements. 
As  a  result  of  increase  of  nervousness,  there 
is  increase  of  sensuality,  and,  since  this 
leads  to  excesses  among  the  masses,  it  un- 
dermines the  foundations  of  society — the 
morality  and  purity  of  family  life.  When 
this  is  destroyed  by  excesses,  unfaithfulness, 
and  luxury,  then  the  destruction  of  the  state 
is  inevitably  compassed  in  material,  moral, 
and  political  ruin." 

Such  was  the  condition  of  the   Latin 


A  VITAL  QUESTION.  201 

race  when  the  fierce  and  hardy  Vandals 
overran  the  Roman  peninsula;  such  was 
the  condition  of  the  Assyrians  when  Baby- 
lon fell  beneath  the  onslaughts  of  the  great 
Macedonian;  such  was  the  condition  of  the 
Egyptians  when  the  northern  myriads 
swept  down  upon  the  fertile  valley  of  the 
Nile,  and  destroyed  forever  the  once  pow- 
erful and  all-conquering  kingdom  of  the 
Pharaohs;  and  such,  too,  was  the  condition 
of  the  French  nation  in  1794,  when  An- 
archy unfurled  its  red  banner  at  the  head 
of  the  most  gigantic  social  revolution  the 
world  has  ever  known. 

At  the  present  time,  community  of  in- 
terests, as  well  as  higher  civilization,  would 
utterly  forbid  the  total  subjugation  of  one 
civilized  nation  by  another,  such  as  oc- 
curred in  the  olden  times;  hence  no  nation 
need  fear  annihilation  from  such  a  source. 
The  danger  comes  from  another  point,  and 
consists  in  the  almost  certain  uprising,  at 
some  time  in  the  future,  of  degenerate  indi- 


202  A  VITAL  QUESTION. 

viduals  in  open  warfare  and  rebellion 
against  society. 

The  question  whether  the  world  is 
growing  better  or  worse  is  often  debated, 
and  can  be  answered  affirmatively  on  both 
sides.  Better,  because  superstition,  bigot- 
ry, and  dogmatism  have  given  way,  to  a 
great  extent,  to  the  tolerance  and  freedom 
of  higher  civilization  and  purer  ethics  in 
normal,  healthy  man ;  worse,  because  crime 
(and  I  mean  by  crime  all  anti-social  acts) 
has  greatly  increased  on  account  of  the  per- 
nicious influence  of  degeneration. 

That  superstition,  bigotry,  and  dogmat- 
ism are  on  the  wane,  and  that  they  will, 
sooner  or  later,  be  entombed  in  that  depos- 
itory of  obsolete  savage  mental  habitudes — 
absolute  and  utter  oblivion — a  glance  at 
the  success  that  science  has  achieved  in  the 
warfare  waged  against  it  by  the  Church, 
will  at  once  declare.  (Throughout  this  ar- 
ticle I  use  the  word  Church  to  express 
priests  of  any  and  every  denomination, 


A  VITAL  QUESTION.  203 

whether  Jew,  Gentile,  or  Pagan,  Protestant 
or  Catholic.)  A  short  incursion  into  this 
subject,  i.  e.,  the  Church's  warfare  on  sci- 
ence, is  absolutely  necessary.  For  the  tri- 
umph of  science  over  its  enemies — super- 
stition, bigotry,  and  dogmatism,  coincident- 
ly,  ignorance  and  illiterateness — shows  that 
the  civilized  world,  at  the  present  time,  is 
markedly  different  in  some  respects  from 
the  world  of  ancient,  medieval,  and  even 
comparatively  recent  times;  and,  in  sum- 
ming up,  this  changed  condition  will  be  a 
weighty  factor  in  making  up  an  answer  to 
the  question  which  heads  this  paper. 

When  Olympus  first  faded  away  from 
the  enlightened  eyesight  of  the  Greeks,  and 
changed  into  space  besprinkled  with  stars; 
when  Zeus  no  longer  held  his  divine  court 
on  its  mystic  summit;  when  oracles  became 
mute  and  the  fabled  wonders  of  the  "Odys- 
sey" either  vanished,  or  resolved  them- 
selves into  prosaic  commonplaces  under  the 
investigations  of  the  skeptic  or  the  acciden- 


204  A  VITAL  QUESTION. 

tal  discoverer,  the  Church  made  a  most 
strenuous  protest  against  the  destruction  of 
its  traditions. 

Many  of  these  early  seekers  after  truth 
were  even  killed  and  their  goods  confis- 
cated. The  Church  issued  its  edict  against 
heresy  (and  any  doctrine  that  taught  a  be- 
lief antagonistic  to  the  accepted  tenets  of 
pagan  mythology  and  theogony  was  here- 
sy), and  hurled  its  anathemas  against  the 
heretic.  Olympus,  in  the  eyes  of  the 
Church,  still  existed,  and  Zeus,  the  man- 
god,  still  quaffed  the  sacred  ambrosia  in  its 
shady  groves.  The  Sirens  still  sang  their 
entrancing  songs,  while  Scylla  and  Charyb- 
dis  were  ever  stretching  out  eager  arms  to- 
ward unwary  mariners.  Gigantic  one-eyed 
Cyclops,  with  Polyphemus  as  their  leader, 
still  patrolled  the  shores  of  Sicily,  and  kept 
their  "ever-watchful  eyes"  turned  toward 
the  open  sea. 

The  hardy  Greek  sailor  landed  on  the 
Cyclopean  island,  and  discovered  that 


A  VITAL  QUESTION.  205 

Polyphemus,  and  Arges,  and  Brontes,  and 
Ste ropes,  and  all  the  other  one-eyed  mon- 
sters were  nothing  but  sea-wrack,  bowlders, 
and  weeds.  He  sailed  farther,  past  Scylla 
and  Charybdis,  and  discovered  no  greater 
dangers  than  sharp  rocks  and  whirlpools. 
Yet  farther  he  sailed  out  into  the  unknown 
sea,  and  the  only  Siren's  song  he  heard  was 
the  whistling  of  the  wind  through  the  cord- 
age of  his  vessel. 

In  vain  the  Church  thundered  against 
the  daring  investigator.  Neither  fire,  nor 
sword,  nor  imprisonment,  nor  death  itself 
could  check  the  march  of  truth.  Mythol- 
ogy and  pagan  theogony  had  received  their 
death-blows;  superstition,  bigotry,  and 
dogmatism  were  elbowed  aside  and  gave 
place  to  dawning  science.  The  Church 
held  that  that  which  had  been  believed  by 
pious  men  for  untold  ages  must  necessarily 
be  true.  Science,  in  the  garb  of  philoso- 
phy, with  cold,  dispassionate  criticism, 
proved  that  these  hitherto  accepted  truths 


206  A  VITAL  QUESTION. 

were  arrant  fallacies.  The  poets  and 
writers  then  took  up  the  subject,  and  finally 
the  people  fell  into  line,  so  superstitious, 
bigoted,  dogmatic  mythology  died,  intel- 
lectuality took  its  place,  and  higher  civili- 
zation took  a  step  forward. 

Thomas  H.  Huxley  writes,  in  his  pre- 
face to  "Science  and  Christian  Tradition," 
as  follows:  "I  have  never  'gone  out  of  my 
way'  to  attack  the  Bible  or  anything  else; 
it  was  the  dominant  ecclesiasticism  of  my 
early  days,  which,  as  I  believe,  without  any 
warrant  from  the  Bible  itself,  thrust  the 
book  in  my  way. 

"I  had  set  out  on  a  journey,  with  no 
other  purpose  than  that  of  exploring  a  cer- 
tain province  of  natural  knowledge;  I 
strayed  no  hair's  breadth  from  the  course 
which  it  was  my  right  and  my  duty  to  pur- 
sue; and  yet  I  found  that,  whatever  route 
I  took,  before  long  I  came  to  a  tall  and  for- 
midable looking  fence.  Confident  as  I 
might  be  in  the  existence  of  an  ancient  and 


A  VITAL  QUESTION.  207 

indefeasible  right  of  way,  before  me  stood 
the  thorny  barrier  with  its  comminatory 
notice-board — 'No  THOROUGHFARE.  By 
order.  MOSES.'  There  seemed  no  way 
over;  nor  did  the  prospect  of  creeping 
round,  as  I  saw  some  do  attract  me.  .  .  . 
The  only  alternatives  were  either  to  give 
up  my  journey — which  I  was  not  minded 
to  do — or  to  break  the  fence  down  and  go 
through  it." 

Huxley  found  that  this  Mosaic  fence,  as 
erected  by  dogmatic  theologians  and  schol- 
asticists,  was  but  a  flimsy  structure  at  best, 
and  one  that  was  easily  overthrown  and  de- 
stroyed. 

Dogmatic  theology  teaches  that  man 
was  created  from  the  dust  of  the  earth,  and 
that  he  at  once  fell  heir  to  an  estate  of  phys- 
ical and  psychical  habitudes  which  were 
God-like  in  character;  scientific  investiga- 
tion, on  the  contrary,  demonstrated  the  fact 
that  man's  inception  begins  in  bathybian 
protoplasm  and  culminates,  as  far  as  his 


208          ,  A  VITAL  QUESTION. 

general  physical  organism  is  concerned,  in 
the  last  link  of  an  evolutionary  chain  that 
reaches  back  and  back,  through  countless 
eons  of  ages,  to  the  very  beginnings  of  life. 

The  History  of  Life  written  upon  the 
rocky  frame-work  of  this  gray  and  hoary 
old  world,  declares  that  man's  physical  be- 
ing is  but  the  result  of  the  laws  of  evolution. 
He  did  not  spring  into  being,  like  the  sea- 
born Venus,  a  creature  of  physical  grace, 
and  strength,  and  beauty;  nor  did  the  sa- 
cred flame  of  an  inborn  intelligence  at  once 
illumine  his  countenance.  For  thousands  of 
years,  the  forbears  of  the  present  civilized 
homo  sapiens  were  but  slightly  above  the 
Alalus  (ape-like  man)  of  Haeckel  in  point 
of  personal  pulchritude;  and  for  thousands 
of  years,  the  ancestors  of  the  civilized  man 
of  to-day  were  savages,  with  all  the  psychi- 
cal traits  of  primitive  peoples. 

Social  ethics  are  as  much  the  result  of 
evolutionary  growth  as  is  man  himself. 
Civilization,  which  is  but  another  name  for 


A  VITAL  QUESTION.  209 

ethical  culture,  is  the  outcome  of  the  inher- 
ited experiences  of  thousands  of  years. 
These  experiences  were  the  results  of  law, 
and  that  law  can  be  embraced  in  one  com- 
prehensive word — evolution. 

Now,  one  of  the  most  noticeable  facts  in 
biological  history  is  the  tendency  that  ani- 
mal structures  or  organisms,  under  certain 
circumstances,  have  toward  atavism  or  re- 
version to  ancestral  types.  Not  only  is  this 
to  be  observed  in  the  physical  organisms  of 
animals,  but  also  in  their  psychical  beings 
as  well. 

Atavism  is  invariably  the  result  of  de- 
generation, as  I  will  endeavor  to  demon- 
strate later  on  in  this  paper. 

I  believe  that  we  are  rapidly  hurrying 
toward  a  social  cataclysm,  beside  which  the 
downfall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  the  de- 
struction of  ancient  Egyptian  and  Baby- 
lonian civilizations,  and  the  bloody  days  of 
the  French  Revolution  will  sink  into  utter 
insignificance.  I  believe,  also,  and  think 


210  A  VITAL  QUESTION. 

that  I  can  demonstrate  the  truthfulness  of 
my  belief,  that  the  inciting  cause  of  this  so- 
cial revolution  will  not  be  found  in  those 
citizens  of  the  United  States  of  Anglo-Sax- 
on and  Celtic  parentage,  but  that  it  will  be 
observed  among  our  Slavonic,  Teutonic, 
and  Latinic  citizens.  But,  in  order  to  fur- 
nish a  parallel  (from  which  you  may  draw 
your  own  conclusions),  before  I  enter  fully 
into  the  discussion  of  this  part  of  my  sub- 
ject, I  wish  to  review,  very  briefly,  certain 
historical  epochs. 

When  the  first  conquerors  of  Egypt, 
about  whom  history  can  tell  us  so  little,  first 
occupied  the  fertile  valley  of  the  Nile,  the 
country,  in  all  probability,  was  inhabited 
by  negroes.  The  conquering  race  drove 
out  or  enslaved  the  native  population  and 
founded  the  ancient  kingdom  of  Egypt. 
This  kingdom  waxed  strong  and  mighty 
until,  at  the  time  of  Rameses  the  Great, 
more  than  three  thousand  two  hundred 
years  ago,  it  was  the  most  powerful  mon- 


A  VITAL  QUESTION.  211 

archy  in  the  whole  world.  The  mighty  son 
of  Ra,  Meiamoun  Ra,  or  Rameses,  as  he 
is  most  generally  styled,  was  a  warrior  and 
a  statesman.  He  led  his  victorious  troops 
north,  east,  and  west,  conquering  nations  as 
he  went,  until  he  dominated  and  brought 
into  a  state  of  vassalage  over  two-thirds  of 
the  then  known  world. 

Wealth  flowed  into  his  kingdom  from 
all  the  surrounding  countries,  consequent- 
ly, luxury,  with  its  never-failing  associate, 
debauchery,  made  its  appearance,  and  the 
decadence  of  this  mighty  kingdom  set  in. 

It  is  true  that  many  Pharaohs  reigned 
after  Rameses,  and  that  the  monarchy 
maintained  its  greatness  for  a  long  period 
of  time,  but  luxury  had  taken  hold  on  the 
Egyptians  at  the  time  of  their  greatest  pros- 
perity and  had  sown  the  seeds  of  degenera- 
tion, which  flourished  and  grew  apace,  un- 
til the  emasculated  and  effeminate  people 
yielded  up  their  independence  to  the  con- 


212  A  VITAL  QUESTION. 

querors,  and  passed  out  of  existence  as  a 
nation  forever. 

The  Roman  people,  under  the  leader- 
ship of  their  ancient  heroes,  was  a  nation  of 
hardy  warriors  and  husbandmen.  That 
preeminent  military  genius,  Julius  Caesar, 
had  carefully  fostered  this  warlike  spirit  in 
the  bosoms  of  his  compatriots,  and,  by  a 
series  of  brilliant  campaigns,  had  made  the 
Roman  nation  the  most  powerful  on  the 
face  of  the  globe.  The  Roman  legions 
were  not  only  victorious  on  land,  extending 
their  conquests  into  Iberia,  farther  Gaul, 
and  still  farther  Brittain,  but  the  Roman 
triremes  also  swept  the  Mediterranean, 
from  the  Pillars  of  Hercules  to  the  shores 
of  Syria  and  Egypt.  Wealth  poured  into 
the  country  from  all  sides,  and  the  people 
reveled  in  a  boundless  prosperity. 

Luxury  had  already  begun  to  enervate 
the  hardy  soldiery  at  the  time  of  Caesar's  as- 
sassination, yet  not  enough  to  show  the  full 
effects  of  degeneration  and  demoralization. 


A  VITAL  QUESTION.  213 

The  empire  under  the  first  emperors  stead- 
ily grew  richer  and  more  powerful,  and  the 
luxury  of  the  rich  more  unlimited  and 
licentious.  At  length  a  change  can  be  no- 
ticed. The  Roman  legions,  hitherto  victor- 
ious over  every  foe,  are  now  frequently 
vanquished;  conquered  tribes  uprear  the 
standard  of  revolt  and  refuse  to  pay  tribute; 
the  territorial  boundaries  of  the  empire  ma- 
terially shrink,  and  its  once  conquered 
provinces  pass  out  of  its  dominion  forever. 
The  gradual  degeneration  of  this  na- 
tion is  faithfully  mirrored  in  the  character 
of  the  emperors  who  governed  it.  Nero, 
Caligula,  Tiberius,  Caracalla,  and  Messa- 
lina,  the  depraved  wife  of  Claudius  and  the 
daughter  of  Domitia  Lepida,  herself  a  li- 
centious and  libidinous  woman,  were  but 
accentuated  types  of  the  luxurious  and  de- 
bauched nobility.  Not  only  did  the  nobility 
become  victims  of  degeneration,  but  the 
poorer  classes  also  lost  their  virility,  until  at 
last  we  find  the  stability  of  the  nation  pre- 


214  A  VITAL  QUESTION. 

served  through  the  instrumentality  of  for- 
eign mercenaries.  The  greatness  of  this 
once  widespread  empire  dwindled  away 
(the  freedom  of  its  institutions  contracting 
along  with  its  shrinking  boundaries) ,  until 
we  find  it  lapsed  into  a  state  of  barbarian 
despotism  under  the  son  of  Aurelius;  and, 
had  it  not  been  for  outside  influences,  it 
would  have  eventually  fallen  into  a  state  of 
utter  and  complete  savagery. 

Now  let  us  turn  to  a  recent  civilization. 
At  the  time  of  Louis  XVI.,  the  French  na- 
tion was  thoroughly  under  the  influence  of 
degeneration  consequent  to  a  luxury  and 
licentiousness  that  had  had  a  cumulative 
action  for  several  hundred  years.  The  peas- 
antry and  the  inhabitants  of  the  faubourgs, 
owing  to  their  extreme  poverty,  itself  a 
powerful  factor  in  the  production  of  de- 
generation, had  lapsed  into  a  state  closely 
akin  to  that  of  their  savage  ancestors.  The 
nobility  were  weak  and  effeminate,  the  ma- 


A  VITAL  QUESTION.  215 

jority  of  them  either  sexual  perverts  or 
monsters  of  sensuality  and  lechery. 

The  middle  class,  as  ever  the  true  con- 
servators of  society,  seeing  this  miserable 
state  of  affairs,  attempted  to  remedy  it.  Not 
fully  understanding  the  danger  of  such  a 
procedure,  they  allowed  the  degenerate 
element  to  share  in  their  deliberations. 
Their  moderate  and  sensible  counsels  were 
quickly  overruled  by  their  savage  associ- 
ates, who  brought  about  a  Reign  of  Terror 
(with  such  psychical  atavists  as  Marat, 
Danton,  and  Robespierre  at  its  head),  the 
like  of  which  the  world  had  never  seen  be- 
fore, nor  has  ever  experienced  since. 

I  have  demonstrated,  in  the  three  in- 
stances of  history  just  cited,  that  degenera- 
tion has  invariably  followed  luxury,  and 
that  a  social  and  political  cataclysm  has 
been,  invariably,  the  result  of  this  degenera- 
tion. That  certain  classes  of  the  Old 
World,  and  of  the  New  World,  also,  are 
living  in  inordinate  luxury;  and  that  cer- 


216  A  VITAL  QUESTION. 

tain  other  classes  are,  even  now,  struggling 
in  the  very  depths  of  poverty,  is  a  well- 
known  fact.  That  this  state  of  affairs  is 
rapidly  increasing  the  percentage  of  degen- 
erates, such  as  sexual  perverts,  insane  indi- 
viduals, and  congenital  criminals,  is  not 
generally  known ;  yet  it  is  a  woeful  truth. 

The  factors  in  the  production  of  degen- 
eration are  as  multitudinous  as  they  are 
varied,  and  I  can  find  space  for  only  a  few 
of  them.  The  artificiality  of  many  peoples' 
lives,  wherein  night  is  turned  into  day,  is 
a  prominent  factor  in  the  production  of  de- 
generation. Now,  the  long  continued  in- 
fluence of  artificial  light  exerts  a  very 
deleterious  effect  on  the  nervous  system; 
hence  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  so 
many  men  and  women  of  society  are  neu- 
rasthenic. Not  only  are  those  individuals 
who,  voluntarily  and  preferably,  spend  the 
greater  portions  of  their  lives  in  artificial 
light,  rendered  nervously  irritable,  but 
those,  also,  who  are  driven  by  force  of  cir- 


A  VITAL  QUESTION.  217 

cumstances  to  turn  night  into  day  are  like- 
wise afflicted.  Several  years  ago,  I  met  a 
distinguished  editor  at  Waukesha,  who  was 
suffering  greatly  from  nervous  exhaustion. 
He  told  me  that  he  was  so  situated  that  he 
did  all  of  his  work  at  night,  often  writing 
until  three  o'clock  in  the  morning.  I  ad- 
vised him  to  quit  this  and  to  do  his  editorial 
work  during  daylight.  Not  long  after,  he 
wrote  me  that  he  had  followed  my  advice, 
and  that  he  was  a  new  man  in  point  of 
health. 

The  loss  of  nervous  vitality  makes  itself 
evident  by  a  feeling  either  of  exhaustion 
or  irritability.  The  fashionable  devotee,  in 
order  to  counteract  this,  either  stimulates 
the  system  with  alcohol,  or  exorcises  the 
"fidgets"  by  the  use  of  sedatives,  such  as 
chloral  or  morphia.  The  baneful  effects  of 
such  medication  are  not  at  once  appre- 
ciable, but,  if  continued  for  any  length  of 
time,  they  will  eventually  result  in  a  total 
demoralization  of  the  nervous  system. 


218  A  VITAL  QUESTION. 

Time  and  again  have  I  seen  fashionable 
men  and  women,  at  the  close  of  the  season, 
veritable  nervous  wrecks. 

What  necessarily  would  be  the  effect  of 
physical  and  psychical  lesions  like  these  on 
a  child  begotten  by  such  parents?  The  in- 
evitable result  would  be  degeneration  in 
some  form  or  other. 

Again,  many  men  and  women  stand  the 
drain  of  a  fashionable  season  on  their  ner- 
vous systems  without  attempting  to  recoup 
through  the  agency  of  drugs,  and  at  the  end 
find  themselves  physically  and  psychically 
exhausted.  They  go  to  the  seaside  or  some 
other  resort,  and,  in  a  measure,  recover 
their  nervous  vitality,  only  to  lose  it  again 
during  the  next  season.  This  continues  for 
season  after  season,  the  nervous  system  all 
the  time  becoming  weaker,  until  some  day 
there  is  a  collapse,  ending  in  hysteria, 
paresis,  or  some  other  of  the  hundred  forms 
of  neurotic  disorder.  What  will  be  the 
effect  on  the  progeny  resulting  from  the 


A  VITAL  QUESTION.  219 

union  of  such  individuals?  Again  the 
answer  must  necessarily  be — degeneration. 

The  long  and  continued  intercourse  of 
the  sexes  in  the  ball-room,  where  the  women 
are  dressed  so  decollete  that  they  excite 
sensuality  in  the  men,  very  frequently  with- 
out the  men  being  conscious  of  the  fact, 
must  necessarily  exert  a  deleterious  effect 
on  the  nervous  system. 

Contact  of  the  sexes  in  the  dance  is  only 
pleasurable  because  of  that  contact.  I  am 
fully  aware  of  the  fact  that  this  idea  is 
scouted  and  denied  by  those  who  indulge 
in  the  waltz  and  kindred  dances.  They 
claim  that  no  thought  of  carnality  ever 
enters  into  their  feelings.  I  know  from  per- 
sonal experiences  that  they  are  honest  in 
this  declaration,  yet,  from  a  psychical  stand- 
point, they  are  woefully  in  error.  Aestheti- 
cism  and  carnality  are  by  no  means  as  dis- 
sociate as  the  aesthete  would  have  us  believe. 
AH  pleasurable  emotions  that  have  their 
inception  in  the  senses  are,  fundamentally. 


220  A  VITAL  QUESTION. 

of  carnal  origin.  The  waltz  is  aesthetic,  yet 
all  of  its  pleasure  is  based  on  an  emotion 
closely  akin  to  sensuality.  Men  derive  no 
pleasure  from  waltzing  with  one  another, 
nor  do  women  under  like  circumstances. 

Nature  demands  in  the  interest  of  health 
a  certain  amount  of  exercise.  The  luxu- 
rious society  man  or  woman  utterly  disre- 
gards this  demand  of  nature,  consequently 
indigestion,  with  all  of  its  associated  ills, 
steps  in,  and  becomes  an  additional  factor 
in  the  production  of  nervous  exhaustion. 
To  tempt  the  appetite,  highly  seasoned 
foods,  many  of  which  are  deleterious  and 
injurious,  are  prepared  and  taken  into  the 
torpid  and  crippled  stomach.  Finally 
nature  rebels  and  the  unfortunate  dyspeptic 
is  forced  to  go  through  life  on  a  diet  of  oat- 
meal, or,  weakened  by  lack  of  healthy  sus- 
tenance, the  brain  gives  way,  and  the  victim 
passes  the  remainder  of  his  or  her  life  in  a 
lunatic  asylum.  Children  begotten  by  mis- 


A  VITAL  QUESTION.  221 

erable  invalids  like  these,  beyond  a  perad- 
venture,  must  necessarily  be  degenerate. 

Indigestion  is  not  the  only  ill  that  na- 
ture inflicts  for  any  disregard  of  her  laws. 
She  is  a  rough  nurse  but  a  safe  one,  con- 
sequently she  forbids  the  rearing  of  her 
hardiest  creation,  man,  in  hot  houses,  as 
though  he  were  a  tender  exotic.  The  luxu- 
rious individual  pampers  his  body,  follow- 
ing the  dictates  of  his  own  selfish  desires 
and  utterly  disregarding  the  laws  of  nature, 
and  before  he  reaches  middle  age,  discovers 
that  he  has  become  an  old,  old  man.  weak  in 
body,  but  still  weaker  in  mind. 

The  children  resulting  from  the  union 
of  the  various  neurasthenics  described 
above  are  necessarily  degenerate.  As  they 
grow  up,  they  show  this  degeneration  by 
engaging  in  all  kinds  of  licentious  debauch- 
ery, and  unnatural  and  perverted  indul- 
gences of  appetite.  In  nine  cases  out  of  ten, 
they  will  spend  the  fortunes  inherited  from 
their  parents  in  riotous  debauchery,  and 


222  A  VITAL  QUESTION. 

will  eventually  sink,  if  death  does  not  over- 
take them,  to  the  level  of  their  fellow  de- 
generates— those  who  have  been  brought 
into  existence  by  poverty  and  debauchery, 
and  who  await  them  at  the  foot  of  the  social 
ladder.  Among  such  degenerate  beings, 
the  doctrines  of  socialism,  of  communism, 
of  nihilism,  and  of  anarchy  have  their 
origin. 

Now  let  us  turn  our  attention  to  the 
evidences  of  luxury  and  debauchery,  and 
the  consequent  evidences  of  degeneration, 
which  obtrude  themselves  on  all  sides.  The 
reckless  extravagance  of  the  nobility  of  the 
Old  World  is  well  known.  Vice  and  licen- 
tiousness even  penetrate  to  royal  house- 
holds, and  princes  of  the  blood  pose  as  roues 
and  debauchees.  As  I  have  demonstrated 
elsewhere,  degeneration  in  the  wealthy 
classes  of  society  generally  makes  itself  evi- 
dent by  the  appearance  of  psycho-sexual 
disorders.  The  horrible  abominations  of 
the  English  nobility,  as  portrayed  in  the 


A  VITAL  QUESTION.  223 

revelations  of  Mr.  Stead,  are  well  known. 
Charcot,  Segalas,  Fere,  and  Bouvier  give 
clear  and  succinct  accounts  of  the  vast 
amount  of  sexual  perversion  existing  among 
the  French,  while  KrafTt-Ebing  informs  us 
that  the  German  empire  is  cursed  by  the 
presence  of  thousands  of  these  unfortunates. 
When  we  come  to  examine  this  phase  of 
degeneration  in  our  own  country,  we  find 
that  it  is  very  prevalent.  This  is  especially 
noticeable  in  the  larger  cities,  though  we 
find  examples  of  it  scattered  broadcast 
throughout  the  land. 

The  editor  of  one  of  our  leading  mag- 
azines, in  a  remarkable  series  of  letters,  has 
shown  that  the  wealthy  New  Yorkers  revel 
in  a  luxuriousness  that  is  absolutely  start- 
ling in  its  license.  Thousands  are  expended 
on  a  single  banquet,  while  the  flower  bills 
for  a  single  year  of  some  of  these  modern 
Luculli  would  support  a  family  of  five  peo- 
ple for  three  or  four  years!  Bacchanalian 
orgies  that  dim  even  those  of  the  depraved, 


224  A  VITAL  QUESTION. 

corrupt,  and  degenerate  Nero  are  of  nightly 
occurrence.*  Drunkenness,  lechery,  and 
gambling  are  the  sports  and  pastimes  of 
these  ultra  rich  men,  and  it  is  even  whis- 
pered that  milady  is  not  much  behind  mi- 
lord in  the  pursuit  of  forbidden  pleasures. 
Psycho-sexual  disorders  are  not  the  only 
evidences  of  degeneration  in  the  wealthy, 
by  any  means.  Many  a  congenital  criminal 
is  born  in  the  purple,  who  shows  his  moral 
imbecility  in  many  ways.  Sometimes  he 
sinks  at  once  to  the  level  of  a  common  thief, 
but  generally  his  education  keeps  him  with- 
in the  pale  of  the  law.  Always,  however, 
his  sensuality  is  unbounded,  and  he  will 
hesitate  at  nothing  in  order  to  gratify  his 
desires.  This  unbridled  license  has  already 
had  its  effect  elsewhere.  We  see  that  it  has 
even  corrupted  the  guardians  and  conserva- 
tors of  the  public  peace.  The  recent  inves- 


(*)  I  know  from  personal  observation  that  "Seeley 
Dinners"  are  of  frequent  occurrence  in  New  York,  as 
well  as  in  other  large  cities.  J.  W.,  Jr. 


A  VITAL  QUESTION.  225 

tigation  of  the  police  board  of  New  York 
shows  a  degree  of  corruption  that  is  simply 
overwhelming,  and  that  the  same  state  of 
affairs  exists  in  Chicago,  New  Orleans,  St. 
Louis,  and  other  large  cities,  I  have  every 
reason  to  believe. 

There  are  yet  other  evidences  of  degen- 
eration; witness  the  eroticism  that  is  to  be 
found  in  our  literature.  Unless  a  book 
appeals  to  the  degenerate  tastes  of  its  read- 
ers it  might  just  as  well  never  have  been 
published.  This  is  not  cynicism;  it  is  plain, 
unvarnished  truth.  Again,  turn  to  the  stage, 
and  we  find  the  same  thing.  The  tragedies 
and  comedies  of  Shakespeare  are  shelved, 
while  immoral  "society  plays"  and  "living 
pictures"  and  "problem  plays"  hold  the 
boards.  Salacity,  with  only  sufficient 
and  that  is,  degeneration.  That  which  hap- 
pened centuries  ago  will  happen  again,  for 
covering  to  hide  downright  lewdness,  is 
everywhere  apparent.  Now  what  is  the 
result  of  this?  There  can  be  but  one  answer, 


226  A  VITAL  QUESTION. 

man  is  governed  by  the  same  laws  of  nature 
now  as  he  was  then. 

Statistics  show  that  insanity  is  markedly 
on  the  increase.  This  is  not  to  be  wondered 
at  when  we  take  into  consideration  the  fact 
that  debauchery  is  the  rule,  and  not  the 
exception,  among  certain  classes  of  people. 
Syphilis,  one  of  the  most  productive  causes 
of  degeneration,  is  exceedingly  active 
throughout  the  whole  civilized  world. 
Blashko  states  that  one  out  of  every  ten  men 
in  the  city  of  Berlin  is  tainted  with  this 
terrible  malady.  This  is  wholly  attribu- 
table to  the  unbounded  sensuality  of  the 
people.  Crime  of  every  description  is  rear- 
ing its  hydra-head,  and  clasping  in  its  de- 
stroying embrace  an  alarming  proportion 
of  human  beings. 

I  have  shown  elsewhere,  that  the  con- 
genital criminal  is  the  result  of  degenera- 
tion, and  that  he  comes  from  all  classes  of 
society.  He  is,  however,  most  frequently 
the  product  of  the  lower  classes,  and  lives 


A  VITAL  QUESTION.  227 

and  dies  among  his  congeners.  I  have 
shown,  also,  that  the  anarchist,  the  nihilist, 
and  the  socialist  belong  to  the  same  cate- 
gory of  degenerate  beings.  Poverty, 
brought  on  by  high  taxation,  by  war,  and 
by  overcrowding,  has  been,  during  the  last 
millenary  period,  very  fertile  in  the  pro- 
duction of  degenerates  in  the  Old  World. 
Lack  of  food  and  sanitation,  the  usual 
adjuncts  of  poverty,  are  powerful  factors 
in  the  production  of  degenerate  individ- 
uals. The  Old  World  has  gotten  rid  of 
these  people  as  rapidly  as  possible  by  un- 
loading them  on  our  shores.  Year  after 
year,  practically  without  restriction,  thou- 
sands of  these  anti-social  men  and  women 
have  swarmed  into  our  country,  until  we, 
comparatively  speaking,  a  nation  just  born, 
contain  as  many  of  these  undesirable  citi- 
zens as  any  of  the  older  nations.  They  still 
continue  to  enter  our  gates,  and  we  our- 
selves are  adding  to  their  number,  as  I  have 
shown,  by  our  own  production. 


228  A  VITAL  QUESTION. 

Some  day — and  I  greatly  fear  that  day 
is  not  very  far  distant — some  professional 
anarchist  (for  there  are  professional  anar- 
chists as  well  as  professional  thieves)  will 
consider  the  time  ripe  for  rebellion,  and, 
raising  the  fraudulent  cry  of  "Labor  against 
Capital!"  instead  of  his  legitimate  cry  of 
"Rapine!  Murder!  Booty!"  will  lead  this 
army  of  degenerates,  composed  of  anar- 
chists, nihilists,  sexual  perverts,  and  con- 
genital criminals,  against  society.  And  who 
will  bear  the  brunt  of  this  savage  irruption? 
The  ultra-rich?  By  no  means!  The  great 
"middle  class" — the  true  conservators  of 
society  and  civilization — will  fight  this  bat- 
tie.  It  will  be  a  fight  between  civilization 
and  degeneration,  and  civilization  will 
carry  the  day.  There  would  have  been  no 
French  revolution  had  the  middle  class 
been  as  wise  then  as  it  is  to-day.  It  was 
taken  by  surprise  at  that  savage,  bloody 
time,  but  as  soon  as  it  recovered,  how 
quickly  it  brought  order  out  of  chaos! 


A  VITAL  QUESTION.  229 

Education  is  the  bulwark  of  civiliza- 
tion, and  the  great  middle  class,  freed  of 
dogmatism,  bigotry,  and  superstition,  is 
welcoming  education  with  outstretched 
hands.  It  is  gaining  recruits,  and  is 
strengthening  its  defenses,  so  that  when  the 
time  comes  its  enemies  may  find  it  fully 
prepared. 

From  the  signs  of  the  times  and  the 
evidence  before  me,  I  have  no  hesitation 
in  declaring  that  I  believe  that  the  begin- 
ning of  the  end  is  at  hand!  This  social 
cataclysm  may  not  occur  for  many  years, 
yet  the  agencies  through  which  it  will 
finally  be  evolved  are  even  now  at  work, 
and  are  bringing  the  culmination  of  their 
labors  ever  nearer  and  nearer  as  time 
passes! 


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BALBOA:     History  of  Peru. 

BANCROFT:     Native  Races   of  the  Pacific  States   of 

North  America. 

BATES:     The  Naturalist  on  the  River  Amazon. 
BATCHELOR:     The  Ainu  of  Japan. 
BECAN  :     Origines  Antwerpianae. 
BIART:     The  Aztecs. 
BIRD:     Unbeaten  Tracks  in  Japan. 
BOSMAN  :     Africa. 
BREMEN:     De  Situ  Daniae. 
BROWLOW:     Travels. 
BUCHARDI:     Dccretorum  Libri. 
GARY:     Translations  of  Herodotus. 
CHAILLE-LONG  :     Naked  Truths  of  Naked  People. 
DARWIN  :     Works. 
DALL:     Alaska  and  its  Resources. 
DE  REMUSAT:     Lettres  Edifiantes. 
DE  REMUSAT:     Nouv.  Mel.  Asiatiques. 
DRAPER:     The  Conflict  between  Religion  and  Science. 
DE  QUATREFAGES  :     The  Human  Species. 
DE  QUATREFAGES:     Hommes  Fossiles. 
DORSEY:     Siouan  Cults;  An.  Rep.  Bur.  Eth.,  1889-90. 
Du  CHAILLU:     Equatorial  Africa. 
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ELLIS:     Polynesian  Researches. 
FORBES:     Oriental  Memoirs. 
FLETCHER:     Peabody  Museum  Report.    Vol.  ill. 


232  BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

FRIEDREICH:    Psychologic. 

GARCILASSO:     The  Royal  Commentaries  of  the  Incas. 

GOLNITZ  :    Itinerarium  Belgico-Gallicum. 

GREGORY:     The  Great  Rift  Valley. 

HAECKEL  :    The  History  of  Creation. 

HAMMOND:     Impotence  in  the  Male. 

HAECKEL:     The  Evolution  of  Man. 

HERODOTUS:    Euterpe,  Clio,  Etc. 

HORACE:     Priap.  Carm.,  Lxxxiv. 

JOHNSTON:     The  Kilima-Njaro  Expedition. 

KELLER:     The  Amazon  and  Madeira  Rivers. 

KNIGHT:     The  Worship  of  Priapus. 

KRAFFT-EBING  :     Psychopathia  Sexualis. 

LANERCROFT,  The  Chronicles  of. 

LETOURNEAU:    Evolution  of  Marriage. 

L'ESTOILE:     Confession  de  Sancy. 

LYDSTON:    Diseases  of  Society. 

LUMHOLTZ:     Among  Cannibals. 

MARTENE  AND  DURAND:    Scrip.  Ampliss.  Collect. 

MASPERO  :     The  Dawn  of  Civilization. 

MARTENE  ET  DURAND:     Coll.  Antiq.  Poenit. 

MASPERO:    Egypt.  Ant.  Etud. 

MAUDSLEY:     The  Physiology  of  Mind. 

NEWBOLD:     Appleton's  Pop.  Set.  Month.,  Feb.  1897. 

PARKMAN:     The  Jesuits  in  North  America. 

PESCHEL:     The  Races  of  Man. 

PRESCOTT:     The  Conquest  of  Peru. 

RABELAIS:     Works. 

ROMANES:    Mental  Evolution  in  Animals. 

RECLUS:    Primitive  Folk. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY.  233 

ROMANES  :    Mental  Evolution  in  Man. 

SEPP:     Heidenthum  u.  Christenthum. 

SIDIS:     Multiple  Personality. 

SHERWILL:     The  Rajmahal  Hills. 

SPENCER:    Principles  of  Sociology. 

SPITZKA:    Insanity. 

STANLEY:    In  Darkest  Africa. 

STEPHENS:     Yucatan. 

STUHLMAN:    Mit  Emin  Pasha. 

STRABO  :     Works. 

TEULON  :    Orig.  de  la  Famille. 

TYLOR:    Anthropology. 

VIGNOLI:    Myth  and  Science. 

VOGT:     Lectures  on  Man. 

WAPPAUS:    Allgem.  Bevoelkerungsstatistik. 

WALLACE:     Travels  on  the  Amazon. 

WESTERMARCK:     Human  Marriage. 

WHITE:     History   of  the   Warfare  of  Science  with 

Theology. 

WALLACE  :     The  Malay  Archipelago. 
WEIR:    Dawn  of  Reason. 


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